


Bound

by Quiddity



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood, Galra History, Galra!Keith, M/M, Omega!Keith, Omegaverse, Past Sendak/Thace, Shiro is a bound slave and there's weird druid magic, Slavery, Slow Burn, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2018-10-03 09:36:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 68,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10241702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quiddity/pseuds/Quiddity
Summary: Keith’s first mission as Commander for the Galra Empire is a success beyond all expectations. Zarkon decides to reward him with a gift for all his hard work. A slave, a gladiator known as Champion, bound to protect him for the rest of his life through druid magic.It’s a fine gift, but Keith isn’t much interested in Champion. There’s bigger plans going on beyond his role as Commander. Things meant to be kept secret. Adding a slave into the mix only makes his life difficult and infinitely more dangerous. But now, they’re stuck together, and Keith is just trying his best to adjust his life around Champion. Can they learn to work with each other in their new lifelong relationship, or will everything fall apart?





	1. The Ritual

**Author's Note:**

> So here’s my next big project, and it is a very big project. I have the bound slave/bodyguard thing going on. I’ve got the omegaverse. I’ve got Galra!Keith. I’ve got the alien biology headcanons. I’ve got this fantasy au going on that I’ve about 50% ripped out of some of my favorite books. I’ve got Sheith and Thulaz and more rarepairs and so, so much Galra goodness and so many other things planned for this that I’m not even close to getting to right now. But I have so much good stuff just around the corner to. You guys like office place drama? Enemies to lovers? Spies?
> 
> This started out, as always I guess, as one little arc that I was going to kind of get through in the same way I did my other longfic. But then I started writing what I had outlined and immediately saw that I had way, way too much going on for what I wanted to put in here? So one arc became four. Welcome to part one. Of part one. I hope you guys like slow burn because I’m gunnin for the long haul here.
> 
> If you’re here for omegaverse, please be patient because I’m wanting to write it a bit differently. As in it’s in the background right now. This is omega!keef but he’s not going to instantly go into heat the first time Shiro looks at him. He’s got lots of cool stuff on his plate and he’s a very busy little Galra. I’m totally gonna get really gross and all the way with omegaverse stuff but it’s on down the road from now. Nothing wrong with those omegaverse fics, but I’m going full on, full sap, full slow burn love story Sheith because I need it more than air. 
> 
> I don’t know what else to say. Find a seatbelt.

Time is very much a relative thing.

 

For Keith, the past six months depends entirely on how much he thought back on what he’d done. Five minutes ago, it had felt like they had gone by in a flash. If he had the choice, he would have it remain so, but with Zarkon’s massive ship looming ahead of them, it was hard to keep recent events out of mind.

 

His first mission as a ranking officer: subjugate a small cluster of star systems that had been proving difficult for the empire for the past several decades, and turn the area into a new outpost for trade.

 

Zarkon’s direct orders had been simple enough.

 

_Break them. Make them regret ever daring to defy the Galra empire. Be sure they never consider making trouble again._

 

Keith hadn’t wanted to do it. He had tried to come in easy, by Galra standards, at first. Just give up. Let the empire build the outpost. Accept the trade route and behave, give up x amount of prisoners, and nobody has to get hurt. That stance had lasted all of two weeks before he started feeling pressure from both sides.

 

The rebels had lived for millennia defying the empire. The past lifetime fighting it outright. These were people confident in an alliance spanning a dozen stars and as many civilizations; they were never going to simply give in and accept a higher power.

 

His crew knew this. Sendak, his second in command, knew this. Keith knew it too, and his hopes for anything otherwise quickly diminished with every failed diplomatic effort. It had vanished completely when his crew started speaking in hushed whispers in the hall. Hisses of dissent lingering in the hallways when his back was turned. When Sendak never stepped up to stop them.

“Coward”

“Bitch”

“Omega”

Keith realized that he would very quickly find himself on the wrong side of a blaster, if not a full on mutiny, if he didn’t start swinging the emperor's hammer.

 

He had almost given the first planet, home of the largest civilization and most of the rebellion's leaders, a twenty-four hour notice. But Sendak, instead of offering an opinion, had thrown a sly glance to the grunts snickering at the entrance to the room. The message was clear enough in his blood-thirsty sneer. Keith didn’t have twenty-four hours to wait. The time for mercy and patience was far over, both for these rebels and for himself.

 

He hadn’t realized the planet was mostly hollow until the ion cannon punched completely through the surface. Keith stood on the bridge of his ship trying desperately to hide his horror as the planet crumbled inward under its own gravity. The molten hot core had flared and spit under millions of tons of rock, mountains, plants and animals and _people_. Keith had been entranced watching the white hot core bubble and swallow down everything it had once nurtured. Everyone around him was cheering and whooping as an entire civilization collapsed into flames.

 

Every Galra in his fleet nearly frothed at that first taste of blood. There was no controlling them, but his mission was simply to break and conquer. As long as they left enough earth to build an outpost on and enough prisoners to run it, he could win back their favor and fulfill his mission at the same time.

 

He had been given two years to accomplish this. Six months in, and the call for Keith to return to Zarkon’s ship came in just as they were breaking ground on the outpost. Any kind of resistance had been quieted months ago, but Keith had felt a bittersweet kind of worry when he’d left Sendak to run the remainder of building as he took a smaller ship and headed back on his own. Sendak liked the whip more than the reigns and Keith felt like he was turning his back on too many people he’d already horrifically failed to protect.

 

The destruction of the first planet had created a domino effect that left the rebellion in waste and a dozen civilizations lost forever. How many people had he killed? How many families had he torn apart? How much precious knowledge and history ripped up like common trash?

 

He doesn’t know the answers to any of these, and he supposes he never will. All he knows is that anguish sounds astonishingly similar no matter who it comes from. He’s galaxies away, but he can still hear it crystal clear as his ship comes to a halt in one of the massive hangars.

 

A druid is there to greet him by the time he’s stepping down to the hangar floor. He certainly hadn’t been there when he’d landed, so he must have teleported in while Keith was shutting down the ship. The druid is somewhat small (though “small” for a druid still totally dwarfs him) and seems to fidget a bit more for a druid than Keith remembers in the months he’s been gone.

 

“Commander Keith, it’s an honor to meet you,” he greets. His voice hisses behind his mask, but Keith immediately realizes the odd size and movement is because the druid is young and overexcited. He twitches long, spindly fingers together that, like all of his kind, look somewhat malnourished. The beaked mask shifts under the druid’s hood to look directly at him and Keith’s stomach turns at the intensity of contact.

 

An instant seems to drag on for several seconds. Keith thinks about a rumor from somewhere in his childhood. If a druid makes eye contact with you, never, ever, be the one to break it. It’s their way of testing your will, and if you fail, they take a little part of your soul as their prize. Nonsense probably, but Keith is too wary of magic to test it.

“Have you heard the news? We’re all very impressed with your performance. Lord Zarkon himself watched that first planet collapse. Beautiful!” It’s an over the top show of praise meant to catch him off guard. He’s supposed to look down first in humility, break that eye contact making the fur raise on the back of his neck. Keith stands firm, doesn’t even blink until the mask tips almost unnaturally inside his hood, curious. The druid gives up then. He doesn’t move, but Keith can feel their eye contact break like a hair thin wire.

“Thank you. Nothing could be better than receiving the Emperor's favor,” Keith does the polite thing then and lightly bows his head before he moves past the druid towards the hangar exit. The druid makes an impatient sound and follows him closely, hanging around in his blind spot. Keith thinks that, if he weren’t so tired from his long trip, he’d teach this errand boy not to antagonize trained soldiers.

“You’ve certainly impressed him,” the druid starts, his hissing voice echoing off the hulls of the ships they pass. “He’s requested that us druids prepare a very nice gift to reward your excellent show of true Galra values.” Keith nearly wrinkles his nose at the thought. Galra values always left him feeling icky and beyond that, the druids were incapable of putting together anything good. He would much rather pass on anything a magician has to give him, but rejecting anything from Zarkon was an instant death sentence.

“Really?” Keith says, feigning interest. “What would that be?” They exit the hangar and Keith acknowledges the salutes of two grunts with a wave of his hand.

“That’s a secret~” Great, he wanted to be coy. Keith doesn’t have the time or patience to play this game so, without anyone to report to, he simply heads towards the barracks. He’ll log his arrival through the console in his rooms. He rattles off his to do list in the back of his mind. A long, hot shower. A nice meal delivered to him. Going to bed early.

“I only came to give you instructions. Don’t eat anything tonight. No alcohol. Only water. Be awake and clear-headed two hours before the morning wake-up call. Have your sword with you when we come for you.” Keith stops at the elevator leading to the barracks and pointedly glares at the druid’s nose, his ears pulled back a little in his irritation.

“What am I fasting for?” Keith growls. He’s more irritated that food is marked off his list than he is by the fact he can’t sleep in tomorrow. “What kind of gift do I need my sword for? You know what that sounds like, right?” The druid shakes his head, his mask waving a little too smoothly, and Keith can almost see him grinning behind it. He likes Keith’s irritation and it rubs him the wrong way. The druid seems to realize it and takes a step back, just out of Keith’s short reach.

“We won’t ask you to put yourself in danger. I promise. You need your sword for one simple thing. It will only take a few seconds and you’ll be free to take your gift and go on your merry way. Just... _“_ the druid pauses, steepling his fingers and now he seems to have a smidge of worry about him, like he knows he’s pushing Keith a bit too far. Keith narrows his glare on him.

“Just?”

“Please take my advice seriously. We really have been working very hard on your reward. It would be a shame if you killed it.”

* * *

 

True to their words, the druids are knocking on his door two hours before morning wake-up call. Keith’s head is pounding. He stands in the middle of his living room glaring down the door. This is all their fault that he feels so awful. They’re the ones who denied him dinner last night and breakfast this morning, kept him tossing and turning all night thinking of their schemes.

They knock again, but Keith still doesn’t move. Instead of answering them he inspects his sword. He runs his fingers down the long black blade, double checks that the binding around the handle is nice and tight. He has a few different swords to choose from. It would probably be safest to use the short one he gets standard issue as a Galra soldier, but well, the druids keep insisting that this is a very nice gift, so Keith’s decided to take a bit of a risk and take a family heirloom with him this morning. He needs this, he thinks, rubbing his thumb over the covered hilt. This sword in particular always grounds him.

He crosses the room and opens the door. Two druids stand there, one with his hand up to knock a third time. They don’t react with surprise at Keith’s sudden appearance, or even much at all. Neither one of them are the energetic newbie from yesterday.

“Good morning, Commander Keith,” one of them says. “Please follow us. He’s been anxious this morning.” They both turn and start down the hall towards the elevators without waiting for his reply. Keith is far too tired to insist on their respect and just follows them after he locks the door behind him.

“Your trainee yesterday was trying to play funny,” Keith says. He catches up to them near the elevator when one of them is already pressing the button to go down. “Who’s _he_?” The elevator opens and all three step inside. Keith fights off the urge to shove himself in the corner as his instincts bristle at being closed in with the two druids.

“Lord Zarkon has seen fit to give you a personal slave,” the left one says after they share a look. “For your exceptional show bringing those rebels to heel.”

“He chose one of the gladiators,” the other chimes in as they elevator gains speed and Keith’s stomach lifts under his ribs. “They call him Champion. Do you know him?” The druid looks over his shoulder, but towards the floor. Keith realizes he’s looking at his sword, likely wondering why he isn’t using the standard issue.

“No, I don’t,” Keith growls. He grits his teeth, his head pounding and ears aching as they drop down towards the labs the druids haunt. He’s heard of _a_ Champion, but he very much doubts he’ll recognize him when he sees him. Gladiator work and the Arena in general left a sour taste in his mouth. There wasn’t any joy in watching unfair fights and outright slaughter for entertainment’s sake.

He tried to imagine what a gladiator nicknamed Champion would look like. Probably some huge, hulking thing capable of ripping apart the usual masses of prisoners without a second thought. Aggressive to a fault, ugly as sin, and probably holding onto a long, long list of grudges. Keith’s headache starts creeping down the back of his neck as a realizes how much of a pain this will likely be. One of the druids make a curious sound.

“Hm, Lord Zarkon seemed to think you would be a fan.” The elevator eases to a stop and the doors open up on a long, dark hallway. Dread creeps around in Keith’s chest as he follows the two out. They walk on and on, down several more flights of stairs and Keith is sure they have to be in some of the deeper basement levels. Much further down and Keith thinks they’ll drop out of the bottom of the ship.

They come to stop at a large black door marked over in ethereal lettering. Runes. Markings the druids use to channel and direct their magic. They seem to pulse and dance just above the surface. Keith can’t quite stand to look at them without feeling nauseous.

One druid breaks off to go further down the hall where a few more stand huddled together in conversation. They hiss at each other just too low for Keith to make out their words, even when he swivels his ears to try and catch as much as he can. After a couple minutes the conversation breaks apart and a different druid comes back, this one a bit out of breath.

“They’ve got him ready. Somehow, he’s gotten it in his head that this is an execution. Lyac’s in the medical bay and we’ve had to give him a sedative. We should get this over with quickly before what little good it did starts to wear off,” the druid explains. Keith heaves a tired sigh. On top of everything, it seems he’s been handed a wild one. He steps up and motions to the door with his sword.

“I agree. Let’s get this over with before he decides to bust more heads. I want to go home,” Keith says. The druids look between each other like they want to say something about that, but they ultimately decide against it and push open the door.

Inside, the room swims even more intensely with the magic pulsing of the runes painted on the floor and up the walls. The only place it seems to thin out is on an identical door on the other side of the room. It’s enough to catch Keith at the door, to make him pause and swallow back the nausea rising up in the back of his throat. He didn’t think he was particularly sensitive to magic, so the room must be thick with it. The druids go ahead of him and stand to either side of the door, their backs nearly pressed to the wall. One points to a low stone altar in the center of the room.

Keith enters and it feels like he’s walked into a wall of water. Everything in the room shimmers as if baking hot and his ears ring faintly in time with the pulsing in the air. He goes to touch the altar but the druid speaks up to stop him.

“Standing right there is fine. That’s for Champion,” he says. A beat after he says so, the door opposite them slides open.

He’s much, much smaller than Keith expects, but it still takes three druids to control him even though they dwarf him in size and he’s apparently been sedated. One each grip his arms so tight their claws draw blood and a third nearly presses flat to Champion’s back as he fights to keep him from backing out of the room. Champion pants hard around the cloth gag fitted over his mouth like a bit and all his muscles bulge as he fights the druids’ guidance. His pale skin stripped with scars and even more of the druid’s strange markings, some of them starting to run under the sheen of sweat.

Keith watches silently as the druids wrestle Champion to the center of the room. It’s fascinating, how his muscle moves under his skin, how he tries to twist and pull at the thick cuffs the bind his wrists and rattles the thick chains around his hips and neck that keep them close to his body and makes it impossible for him to jerk down and out of their grip without choking himself. If he hadn’t been so sickened by hunger and the magic in the room he would have been more interested. Instead, when Champion’s fighting against the druid’s efforts to make him sit on the altar, Keith reaches out, hooks his fingers in the chain at the slave’s throat, and twists it viciously.

Champion heaves when a link digs into the side of his neck. He goes still, chokes around the gag and finally lets the druids make him kneel on the altar. Keith gives him slack and his chest heaves like an exhausted work animal. Even the druids are visibly panting under their robes.

“I’m not interested in playing around with you,” Keith growls. Champion stills, listening, but his eyes, dark, gray, exotic white sclera, flare with rage. Keith realizes that, in this moment, Champion feels no fear. Keith refuses to back down. “I have nothing to do with you. I’m here because I have to be, just like you. So stay still so I don’t end up killing you on accident,” Keith warns. Amazingly, Shiro stays where he is when Keith untangles his fingers from his makeshift collar, but he’s still tense and stiff. The druids holding his arms clearly don’t trust him enough to loosen their grip any.

The one at his back straightens up and come around by Keith as he produces a thick tipped marker from his sleeve. He leans in besides Keith and starts to feel around the left side of Champion’s chest. The slave balks, leans back on his haunches, but one holding his arm grips the back of his neck and holds him still while the other rubs a spot just off center of Champion’s chest with his thumb. He marks it with a heavy spot with the marker and steps back. Next, he motions to Keith’s sword.

“Straight in and straight back out. You don’t have to go terribly deep; just get through his heart. Be careful not to waver though, or you’ll kill him,” the druid explains. Champion groans in agony and bucks back, tries to stand. One of the druids holding him is quick to follow Keith’s example and grabs a handful of the chain at the back of his neck, holding him down where he is. “Naturally. If he flinches too much, he’ll end up killing himself as well,” the druid adds. It’s obviously a jab at the struggling prisoner, and Keith is somewhat relieved to see that he’s smart enough to realize his chances are better if he plays along. Champion settles down then and stills besides for some shivering. He might be anxious, or maybe he’s simply exhausted, but Keith appreciates his decision to make himself an easy target.

“I wouldn’t worry too much. I’m very good with a sword,” Keith says. His head is pounding, and his eyes water in irritation for the magic in the room, but he can manage this much. Either way, it’s no skin off his nose if Champion dies; he can go home and sleep either way. He steps back to a comfortable reach, lines up the tip of his sword to the center of the mark on his chest. Champion lets out all the air in his chest and holds it.

Champion looks him in the eye when Keith steps forward and his sword sinks into his flesh like butter. The tip catches on something, likely a rib, but he pushes through it with a bit of pressure simply because he doesn’t feel like he has the time to think if he should or not. Champion stiffens and nearly falls back. The druids hold him steady as he flinches, makes this strangled moan behind the gag when Keith pulls his sword back and out. Near the whole length is covered in vibrant red blood that falls in fat droplets to the floor.

More, much more, wells up from the wound, dribbling down Champion’s front to soak into the jumpsuit bunched around his hips. Keith frowns as Champion’s eyes roll back and he sags in the druids’ hold.

‘I shouldn’t have pushed that extra bit,’ Keith thinks. A strange kind of disappointment washes over him as he flicks some of the blood off his sword to the floor. He doesn’t know what he was expecting. Anything will die when you run a weapon through a vital organ. Maybe he’s more disappointed in himself for falling for this strange trick of Zarkon’s. Maybe the Emperor just wanted him to handle a troublesome execution.

“Very good,” the druid beside him, the one with the marker, remarks. He holds something out to him. A rough cloth. Keith takes it and starts cleaning his sword. “I didn’t think you would run him all the way through, but I do know you have a reputation for being very good with swords. I really shouldn’t be surprised.”

Keith wrinkles his nose in disgust, nearly asks the druid if he thinks all this is funny. But the druids at the altar are tugging out the gag in Champion’s mouth and pushing him onto his side as he gasps and coughs. Where he’d been hemorrhaging seconds ago is now just a small, pink line of a scar about the width of Keith’s blade. He’d pierced Champion’s heart and he’d lived.

An hour later, Keith is still looking for the appetite that had been plaguing him earlier when two sentries show up at his door, an unconscious Champion hanging between them. As he’d expected, the druids put only the minimal effort into cleaning him up. He’s not the bloody mess he was downstairs, but it’s still dried in little flecks on his skin and the jumpsuit is stained and ruined where it’s still at his hips. They both linger silently as if Keith is somehow going to tell them no thanks, I’ve changed my mind on him.

“I’ve made a place for him in my bedroom. Will you please put him in there?” Keith says, pointing to the bedroom door.

What he’s got set up is just a couple of blankets and a pillow in the floor beside his bed. The sentries set him down and leave Keith be. They show themselves out, lock the front door behind them, and the apartment is quiet.

Keith kneels beside Champion and watches the slow rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps. Now that he’s not distracted by that gross feeling magic and that bloody ritual, Champion seems like a totally different person. Where he was defiant earlier, he just looks exhausted now. Once burning expression now soft and open as he sleeps.  He doesn’t follow the gladiator matches, but Keith doesn’t doubt that Champion is a name he’s earned. His skin is striped through with scars; long cuts, pinpoint punctures, burns and tears. There’s very few clear patches on him. He’s lost an arm at some point. Normally an injury like that was a death sentence but, Keith thinks as he reaches out and gently touches the warm metal of Champion’s cybernetic arm, he must have been popular enough to warrant saving.

Most of the scars are an older pale white. Some are a newer soft pink. He’s wounded too, in a couple places, a set of claw like marks on his side, the arc of pointed teeth in the meat of his shoulder. But these have had enough time to get well on the way to healing. He’s been in the Arena recently; Keith would say a couple of weeks. That thought makes the bright pink scar near the center of his chest seem that much more unnatural. Keith had run him through hardly an hour ago. He’d killed him, but Champion hadn’t died. Instead he’d stopped bleeding, the wound had not only closed but _healed_ and scarred over before his eyes. Keith, watching Champion’s eyelids flutter, reaches out and touches the tips of his fingers over the fresh scar. Smooth, almost soft, warm and, underneath, a strong, steady heartbeat.

He’ll probably wake up soon and Keith doesn’t know how he’s going to react. Keith has heard a fair share about gladiators from his peers, even more from Ulaz. They had been trained for violence and had very little trust to give. Keith can’t expect him to be exactly overjoyed when he wakes up and finds himself trapped in an apartment with the Galra who just stuck his sword through him. Keith grimaces and decides he doesn’t want to be right in his face when he finally wakes up. He stands and leaves the room. He closes the door, wonders if Champion knows how to open them, then locks it for good measure. He’ll...figure that out later. Right now he needs some advice on how to tackle this responsibility Zarkon’s seen fit to dump in his lap.

He has a datapad in the living room. Keith curls up on the couch with it, one eye on the bedroom door and one ear cocked towards it, listening for signs that Champion’s woken up. Of all the things Zarkon could have gifted him, a bonded slave was pretty low on Keith’s list. A promotion? A raise? He would happily take those. He really could use an extended vacation. Six months of brutalizing people deserved a little bit more than the week of leave he’d gotten.

He was going to spend it with a jumpy gladiator hanging around his apartment. What was he going to do with a slave? He didn’t think he was all that important. Any work he had, he preferred to do himself. He didn’t need protecting. He wasn’t interested in the Arena or the Nest. At best Champion would be a stranger constantly in his personal space. At worst he’d get in the way and make trouble for him.

Ulaz would be able to point him in the right direction here, at the very least. He was one of the doctors assigned to the gladiators. If he didn’t know Champion personally, he could at least tell Keith what to expect now that he’d locked one in his bedroom. Ulaz worked with them every day so Keith trusted his advice on handling them. He scrolls through to Ulaz’s private contact and sends a message first to gauge how busy he is.

‘I’m back. Get back to me if you have the time. I’ve got a mild emergency.’ Keith types. He sends it off, looks to the bedroom door. No sound from inside yet, so he must still be out. He’s thinking about trying to contact Thace as well and let him know he’s back when Ulaz calls him.

“I’m glad to hear you’re back with us,” Ulaz says. Keith sighs and rests the datapad on the table beside him. “It’s been too long.”

“I know. I’m glad to be back. It’s…” Keith grimaces as images of the last six months rise to the surface. He shoves them back before they can take hold, glances to the bedroom door again instead. That’s a more pressing matter. “We’ll talk about the trip later. Right now I really need your advice.”

“You did say you had an emergency. Are you okay?” Ulaz asks.

“Zarkon,” Keith starts, his voice tinged with feigned excitement. “Has decided to give me a very special gift.” Ulaz makes a soft sound very much like a muffled ‘oh no’ but Keith continues on. “I had to go all the way to the basement labs this morning and pick him up.”

“Him?”

“Yeah, him. The Great Emperor of the Galra Empire decided to grace me with a bonded slave. So, the whole thing. I got to take a field trip with some druids this morning and stab a recycled gladiator,” Keith explains. His headache is threatening to rise up again just thinking about the mess all this is and rubs at his temple. Ulaz is quiet for several seconds. He must be in his office because Keith hears him typing.

“Oh wow,” Ulaz says finally. “That’s… special.”

“You’re being too kind, as always. It’s a pain in the ass is what it is. I’m...completely lost here. You, you work with the gladiators so, do you have any hints what I should do?” Keith asks.

“Did they bring him up to you yet?”

“Yeah, uh, I have him locked in my bedroom. I know that since he’s bound that he can’t do anything to hurt me but I’m worried he’ll freak out when he wakes up and realizes what’s going on,” Keith says.

“Unlock the door. He’ll want to check the apartment when he wakes up,” Ulaz says. Keith gives the bedroom door a worried look.

“That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“It’s not!” Ulaz chuckles. “They’re always pretty sensitive right after they’re bound. He’ll want to look around and make sure you’re not in any danger. Unlock the door, or he’ll probably try to tear it down himself.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Keith says. He takes the datapad with him as he gets up off the couch and goes to the bedroom door. He presses his thumb into the lock until it clicks open. He thinks about checking inside again, but decides against it. “I stabbed him, and he didn’t die. I feel like I’ve injured a wild ranler and now it’s stuck in my house.” He shivers at the image of that particular animal, all sharp tusks and terrible attitude. “I think I just pissed him off.”

“I’m sure you can handle him,” Ulaz says. “He’s bonded to you. He can’t do anything but sulk, and even then I think he’ll see what kind of person you are pretty quick.”

“Uh, Ulaz, they were calling him ‘Champion’? That doesn’t sound like someone who’s happy to just sulk,” Keith says. He sits on the couch again, but this time on the end farther from the bedroom. He keeps an eye on and one ear turned towards the door.

“Champion?” Ulaz asks. He sounds relieved, like Keith’s found something of his that’s been missing. “Pale? A white forelock? Scar across his nose?”

“Yes? I figured you’d have some idea but it sounds like you know him already,” Keith says. It’s some relief thinking that Champion might not be a complete stranger.

“Of course I do. He’s been around long enough to get a fan base. I’ve been working with him for more than a year now. He’s gotten very popular in the Arena so I was worried when the druids suddenly came for him last week and ordered us to list him as retired. I thought he was gone for good, but they must have been planning to give him to you all along,” Ulaz explains.

“You still have your notes on him then? Can you send them to me?” Keith asks. Lots of prisoners didn’t last very long in the Arena, but those who did, Ulaz and a few of the other doctors started keeping notes on them. For many of the others, it was merely to prevent a popular gladiator from dying too quickly. Keith knew that, for Ulaz, it was partly an anthropological interest and his attempts to be as humane as he was allowed.

“You shouldn’t call him Champion too much, Keith,” Ulaz hums. The datapad lights up and pings as Keith receives a text file. “He doesn’t like it. His name is Shiro.”

“Shiro? That’s a weird name, but at least I can pronounce it,” Keith hums as he opens the copy of Ulaz’s notes. It’s pretty lengthy, so Shiro really must have been around for awhile. Keith starts skimming through it, seeing the blue text of Ulaz’s personal notes besides the official red text of the public notes. Ulaz has had time to add little bit of information to nearly everything and it’s almost become somewhat of a mess. Keith squints at some of the general info.

PRISONER NUMBER: 117-9875  (Takashi Shirogane. Refers to himself as Shiro.)

SPECIES: X9Y-3-A. SPECIMEN 1/3 (Human. The other two are his friends. Named Matt Holt and Sam Holt [Related?]. Asks about them often. Look into this.)

ORIGIN: X9Y-3 (Earth. Water-rich planet. Shiro is unwilling to say much more, but he’s clearly very attached to his home planet. Questions about human population, civilization and technological advancement seem to make him very suspicious. I can’t tell why.)

AGE: UNKNOWN (24 Earth “years”. Young adult. No reliable estimate for an equivalent in universal time as of now.)

With Ulaz’s thoughts alongside pretty much every entry, even just the basic information stretches on for several pages. Keith starts scrolling through and sees the rest is somewhat of a timeline starting a few months after the basic information was taken down. The name Myzax is the first to show up. Keith faintly recognizes the name as another undefeated gladiator. But, if Shiro’s still here, and also undefeated, then that clearly can’t be the case anymore. He took down a big name like that right out of the gate?

“Do you think you can come over and take a look at him?” Keith asks as he sifts through more of the notes. “Even though I saw that druid magic heal him, I still stuck my sword in him. It’s kind of hard to just sit back like ‘Oh, well, he’s totally fine now,’ and just go on like nothing happened.” Ulaz hesitates.

“I can try to make it this evening, but I don’t know how happy he’ll be to see me,” Ulaz says. “Besides being one of his doctors, the binding is so new I’ll probably just stress him out more than anything.” Keith rolls his eyes.

“He’ll get over it. I don’t want him having a heart attack and keeling over two days from now. I don’t want to have to explain to Zarkon why his precious gift died so fast with me when he’s already made it through the Arena for who knows how long,” Keith sighs.

“It’s your fault then if I lose an eye because you insisted on having company during the honeymoon,” Ulaz says. Keith sinks into the couch and groans.

“Don’t call it that. It sounds gross,” Keith growls.

“That’s exactly what it is though,” Ulaz insists. “They gave you extra time off so you could get used to each other and he can settle down. If you tried to take him out on public now he’d probably have a fit thinking everyone was trying to kill you. And that’s not even getting into environmental hazards. It’s honestly amazing what some of the newly bound slaves can come up with.”

“Yes,” Keith sighs. “They gave me a week off to make buddies with a trained fighter. After I’ve tried to kill him. You know what Ulaz? You’re right. I think we’re destined for greatness.”

“I think you’ll like each other,” Ulaz says. “I think he’s kind, despite his reputation, and he’ll warm up to you quickly-” he’s cut off by a loud thump coming from the bedroom. Keith turns all his attention to the door as footsteps thump from one side of the room to the other. He hears drawers opening, doors whooshing open. He’s had to have found both the closet and the bathroom before he’s found a way out of the bedroom.

“Hey, I’ll talk to you later. I think he’s up,” Keith says. He turns off the datapad and sets it aside just as the bedroom door whips open. Shiro stands in the doorway, still half undressed, still covered in dried blood. His chest heaves and Keith worries that he really _is_ having a heart attack. His eyes flick around the room wildly, all the doors, everything around the room, even the ceiling, before they finally land on Keith.

As they stare at each other, Keith doesn’t feel anything besides a mild kind of fear for Shiro’s immediate reaction, but he knows that Shiro should be feeling some kind of pull towards him. The binding only worked one way. Shiro was supposed to be compelled to protect him, but that didn’t mean that Shiro couldn’t be angry, that he couldn’t hate him. Why wouldn’t he? Keith had hurt him and made him a slave. He was part of the race that had imprisoned him for Keith didn’t even know how long. All the prisoners thought that way. There was no reason Shiro would be any different. Keith tosses around his mind for something to say. A way to break the tension and try to convince Shiro right off the bat that his personal tastes don’t necessarily align with what Shiro’s probably expecting.

“Shiro?” Keith asks. This must be the same Champion Ulaz was thinking of. Surprise crosses Shiro’s face at the sound of his own name. “Do you need help finding the shower?” Keith asks. Shiro’s mouth opens, works around words he can’t quite come up with. His shoulders relax a little and Keith points towards his chest. “You’ve got some blood on you.”


	2. Honeymoon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have gotten 1000% more feedback for this than I could have even imagined so of course that makes me work obsessively on this and have no control and already have another chapter ready. I hope you guys like it because it's incredibly fun to write stressed out Shiro. Thank you guys so much for being so interested in this. I hope I can deliver. 
> 
> So like, this is the most complex fanfic I've written so I'm already getting to sprinkle in little crumbs of future plotlines. Can you find them?

The first thought going through Shiro’s mind when he wakes up is the tactile memory of a Galra sinking his sword into him. It was  _ cold,  _ too big, too much metal filling up all the space in his chest. His heart clenching desperately, fast and hard, around the blade as if he could push it out. Shiro had never thought about the sensation of his blood stopping in his veins. How much it would weigh him down. He felt like he had been made of iron. He can’t even remember the pain of it right now. Only the intense sensation of surprise and discomfort. 

It seems like a terrible dream. The druids pulling him out of his cell as a doctor argues and demands answers. The long elevator ride down. The dark room they tossed him in. Trying to make out the shimmering letters on the wall. The hunger gnawing at his ribs, the loneliness clouding his mind when they just left him there for what felt like days and days. How sure he’d been that the druids were just testing how long he would live with only water. 

But he remembers it all so clearly. Talking about a ritual. Someone named Keith. Zarkon. Shiro thinking they were going to kill him and jumping on one of the druids when they tried to restrain him. Digging his fingers into a thin neck until the thing had gagged and tried to claw at him. That wavy, psychedelic room and the headache it gave him. A Galra smaller than any he’d ever seen standing in front of him. A long black sword in one hand and the chain at his neck in the other. He can bring up every detail about him. Soft black hair, with large, almost cat-like ears peeking through. They were rimmed with a pale red not more than a few shades off of pink. Thin, short fur of a somewhat paler color than Shiro was used to seeing on Galra, his throat even being a soft cream color. But his eyes were the same sickly yellow as all his kind. 

Shiro groans as he rolls onto his side and thinks about that small Galra. That must be Keith. He thinks about Keith. He tastes blood on the back of his tongue. A spot on his chest is slightly numb and, when he runs his fingers over it and looks down, there’s a pink scar there. Right over his heart. About as wide as the sword Keith (he thinks) stabbed him with. There’s dried blood flaked on his skin. So it had to be real. 

_ Where’s Keith? _

Shiro’s in a bedroom. It must be a bedroom. There’s a bed, but he’s not in it. He’s tangled up in a couple blankets on the floor just next to it. That’s Keith’s bed, he thinks, then wonders how he knows that. Three doors in the walls. Shiro kicks his way out of the blankets and goes to the one closest to him. It opens for him before he can touch it. It’s a long, thin room. Drawers are on one side and clothes hang from a bar on the other. It’s clearly a closet but Shiro’s compelled to pull each and every drawer open. Most contain more clothes but one carries a locked box. Shiro spends only a few seconds trying to figure out how to open it before he gives up.

_ What’s in the other rooms? _

_ Where’s Keith? _

Shiro goes to the door on the opposite wall across the room. This one doesn’t open for him, and that gives him pause. Most doors he’s seen had a big hand sized pad nearby the Galra used to open it. Shiro looks around, find a smallish square set into the door jam. There’s a piece of glass in there. Shiro hesitates, then tests by sticking the thumb of his left hand into it. Nothing. The right one then, the hand replaced with Galra tech. To his surprise, it beeps and slides open. 

A bathroom is inside. A sink set into a long counter. There’s nothing on it besides a toothbrush and what he can only assume is toothpaste, though it’s in a small jar. A toilet on the other side of the room, hidden by a short wall, a large open air shower and a tub set deep into the floor. Again, he’s compelled to open all the drawers, but all he finds there is a hairbrush. Why? Did Keith just live bare bones or has he been away from home? Has he just moved in?

There’s only one door left. Shiro hears someone talking on the other side and his hackles raise. Who’s there? Is it Keith? Is there someone else here? Why? Shiro opens this door and finds it opens into the rest of the apartment. 

Keith is there, sitting on the couch, tapping on a tablet as he turns wide eyes on Shiro. A phone call then? He looks a bit different than Shiro remembers. He seems a bit smaller, less sure of himself. Less aggressive than the Galra willing to choke him with his own chains before he tries to kill him. 

Two very different and conflicting emotions boil inside him at the same time. Shiro’s scared of him and confused as to what’s happening. How long had it been since Keith hurt him? Hours? Days? Why was he in Keith’s house now? Why not in a cell as always?

But at the same an intense feeling of relief rushes over him seeing Keith. It’s like knowing that a long drink of water is good after a hard workout. It’s refreshing in a way, like he’s getting something he’s been in dire need of without ever knowing it. There’s something about  _ Keith  _ that’s absolutely vital to him. He  _ has  _ to have Keith with him. He  _ has  _ to be sure Keith always stays right where he is. He  _ has  _ to be sure Keith’s absolutely safe. It’s imperative. Like breathing, like sleep. It’s a feeling beyond anything like infatuation, beyond a notion of love. It’s something Shiro  _ needs.  _

“Shiro?” Keith’s voice breaks him out of his thoughts. The sound of his voice doesn’t particularly do anything for him. It doesn’t make butterflies fight around in his stomach like he’s expecting from such a strong reaction to him. Keith simply sounds like a normal young male, his words tinged with a slight accent he can’t really pick out. “Do you need help finding the shower? You’ve got some blood on you.”

“No,” Shiro says. He wonders why Keith is using his given name. Everyone has been calling him either Champion or by his prisoner number since Kerberos, with very few exceptions. Even the other prisoners rarely call him Shiro even when he prods them, tells them the name Champion makes his skin crawl. 

Keith is there on the couch, perfectly fine, but Shiro doesn’t know the layout of this apartment. There’s another door past Keith, another two close together just off the kitchen, one closer to himself, and another on the far side. They itch at him and he has to know what’s on the other side. Visions of hidden intruders float through his mind. They might not be alone. He starts across the room and fiddles with the lock on the door away from the kitchen. Even though he uses his Galra made hand, it chirps at him and the door remains closed. It’s locked. That makes him nervous. 

“Open the door,” Shiro demands, tossing Keith a look over his shoulder. Keith’s ears, strange, fuzzy things, pull back in indignation. 

“Excuse me?” Keith asks. Shiro ignores him long enough to check one of the remaining doors. Shiro has to poke around a bit to figure it out, but he thinks it’s a laundry room. Nothing to bother with. Keith’s questions sound a bit duller from the other room. “What do you need in my office for?” 

Shiro moves across the kitchen to the final door. He tries his thumb but again, this one is locked too. He looks to Keith and sees he’s already unlocking the way to the office. “I need this one open too.”

“That one goes outside,” Keith says. “You’re not planning on looking through every corner of this ship, are you?” The office door opens up to his side and Shiro helps himself. A desk, chair and computer console on one end of the room. Something that reminds him of a day bed on the other. Keith growls when Shiro goes through the drawers but doesn’t try to stop him, like he knows Shiro’s not going to find anything interesting in them.  

Shiro listens to Keith’s fading footsteps as he leaves the room. The front door beeps as he unlocks it, but Keith doesn’t come back, instead going further to the other side of the apartment. Shiro keeps track of him with half an ear but he’s found another locked box in one of the drawers. Shiro turns it over and over in his hand. It’s wide as a shoebox, but so flat that Shiro can’t imagine what he’s keeping in it that’s so important he has to lock it up. He shakes it, but nothing sounds inside. Perhaps it is just empty, and Shiro ultimately decides it’s nothing to bother too much with. 

He goes to the front door, but hesitates when it opens for him. The hallway outside isn’t as big as some he’s used to seeing in the more public and crowded spaces, but it’s still dark. Shiro pokes his head out into the hallway and looks around. There’s nobody out right now, but the hall is lined with more doors identical to the one leading to Keith’s apartment. These must be private quarters then. Who are his neighbors then? Are they safe? The odd intrusive thoughts fight around in his head a little. He wants to look, but he also knows somewhere instinctual that it’s better not to. Keith’s better off staying to himself and not asking for attention. He’ll have to ask Keith to lock this door again. 

“I’m in the bedroom!” Keith calls when Shiro closes the front door and comes looking for him. The bedroom door is open now and as Shiro approaches he hears running water. Shiro steps inside as Keith comes out of the closet with a couple of towels in his arm, something round in a crinkly clear package in his hand. Keith pushes past him into the bathroom, where the tub is half full of steaming water. Keith sets the towels on the counter and pulls open the package. It’s some kind of rounded bar, white on one side, lavender on the other. “Are you finished?”

“You need to lock the front door,” Shiro says. Keith frowns, flicks one of his ears and holds the bar out to Shiro. He takes it. The white side is smooth and almost creamy feeling, but the lavender side is scratchy. It smells clean, but not in any specific way he can name. “Is this soap?” 

“Oh boy,” Keith sighs. “Yes, it’s soap. Probably nicer than you’re used to, but I’m not going to go out of my way to buy shittier soap just to put you down.” Keith points to the tub. “Scrub good because to be honest you’re really gross. You’ve already touched everything in my house, but I guess I’ll just get over that.” Shiro goes to the edge of the tub and looks in. When’s the last time he had a bath, much less a hot one? As a prisoner, he’d only gotten brief, cold showers. 

“Take your time because we aren’t going anywhere. And don’t toss the jumpsuit. I need to wash it so you have  _ something  _ until I can get you another one,” Keith shifts behind him, then heads towards the door. Shiro drops the soap into the water and hesitates to undress when he sees Keith leaving. 

“Where are you going?” he asks. Shiro thinks to himself that he really couldn’t care less. He shouldn’t care where Keith’s at but louder, more intrusive thoughts drown them out. The front door is still unlocked. A crazy aggressive Galra hell,  _ anyone _ , could just barge in and take Keith out while Shiro’s soaking in a stupid bathtub. He follows Keith back out into the living room, where the Galra is picking up the tablet he’d been speaking into earlier. Keith’s nose wrinkles in irritation. 

“Is it the front door bothering you?” he asks. Shiro glances towards it, can’t quite put his feeling into words. The thought of having Keith out of his sight for an extended time rubs him the wrong way. Like he’s being denied something he absolutely needs. 

“Are you staying in here?” He asks. Keith must get what he’s feeling now because his frown deepens, his brow knitting together further. 

“You’re serious? You can’t even stand to bathe on your own? I thought you’d want to just hop in and soak as much as you wanted,” Keith says. He tucks the tablet under his arm and heads to the front door. Shiro thinks for a couple of anxious seconds that Keith’s just going to leave and then he would  _ really  _ have a problem trying to herd him back into the apartment, but Keith merely sets his thumb in the lock until it cheeps at him. 

“I do!” Shiro insists. He hasn’t even  _ seen  _ a bathtub like that in… he doesn’t even know how long. It’s a luxury he’d never even considered getting and after the past week or so, he’s itching to be truly clean again. 

“So what’s wrong?” Keith asks. He heads back to the bedroom and Shiro tails along close behind him. “Do you just not like me being where you can’t see me?” 

“I don’t know! It makes me nervous,” Shiro huffs. He can’t figure out why he’s so hung up over Keith. Why, when he should be fighting tooth and nail against him for the whole stabbing thing, he can’t even bear to be parted from him long enough to bathe. 

“Can I at least stay in the bedroom? I really don’t want to spend my afternoon watching you clean,” Keith sighs.

* * *

 

Keith laughed at him once his hair dried because it looked ‘like a kitten’s mane’. Shiro wasn’t sure what he meant by that, or even if he should be offended. But then one of those gigantic robots showed up at the door with a couple of plastic boxes and Shiro was too preoccupied trying to keep the two apart and intercept the boxes it was trying to hand Keith to wonder over it too much. Gifts from strangers set off more of those irrational alarm bells in his head. Keith isn’t very patient with him. He shoves his elbow into Shiro’s ribs until he heaves, pushes him out of the doorway and shuts the door in the robot’s face while it’s in mid salute. 

“Calm down!” Keith hisses at him. Shiro thinks that, if Keith had been the same size as all the other Galra he’s seen, he would have been more intimidated. But Keith only just clears his chin and doesn’t look at all capable of tossing him, so he ignores Keith’s growling and takes the bag from him. He sets it on the counter and, after fighting for a few seconds to learn how the clasp works, he pops it open. The contents look like noodles with pieces of vegetables and meat in it. Keith seethes by the door. 

“You don’t know this, Shiro, but I’ve been gone for six months. There is no food in this house,” Keith says. Shiro’s torn between Keith lingering near the unlocked door and looking in the other box in front of him. “I ordered groceries while you were in the bath. I am going to open this door. I am going to get the rest of my things. The sentry is still going to be there. It’s only making a delivery. It’s not coming inside. I need you to  _ stay out of my way _ .” Keith narrows his glare on him when he makes to join Shiro at the door. “One of those on the counter is for you. I don’t care which one you take.” His hand nears the lock and Shiro tenses. “You’re not coming with me because you’re just wearing a towel-” the door slides open and Shiro tugs Keith bodily out of the doorway. The Galra curses but Shiro hardly hears him because the robot isn’t there anymore. Instead, two more Galra have taken it’s place, each holding large paper bags in their arms. 

One of them he recognizes as one of the doctors haunting him from the long months he was kept in the cells near the ring. Pale purple with white markings on his face. He remembers him as one of the kinder ones, someone who asked him a lot of questions and always, always taking notes. The second one is darker and slightly smaller than the first with more hair and small beard. He’s never seen him before, but if he’s hanging out with that doctor, he can’t be any good. Shiro bristles and the doctor steps back a little as if intimidated. 

“Oh- Did we come at a bad time? We both had lunch at the same time today and thought we would drop by and see how you getting along with him,” he says. Shiro presses himself into the doorway, but neither Galra in the hall make to move closer, instead just exchanging looks with each other, then over his shoulder at Keith, who Shiro can hear moving around behind him. 

“No, come in. Let’s get this over with, because you can see how well this is going so far,” Keith growls. He grabs Shiro by the arm and tugs him into the room, though he has to pull at him with both hands. He pulls him in a long way, beyond the short island that separates the kitchen and living room and towards the couch. “I’m kind of regretting asking you to come over.” Keith says the last bit with a pointed look to Shiro. He gets it. These two are expected guests, but it doesn’t do much to soothe his anxiety when they ease into the room and set the bags on the kitchen counter, letting the island serve as a barrier between them. Keith holds onto him until he’s sure Shiro’s content where he is, then lets him go with a tired sigh. 

“That’s Ulaz. You probably recognize him,” Keith points to the doctor, then to the one beside him. “That’s his mate Thace. These are friends that  _ invited over _ , Shiro. Don’t freak out on them, okay? I know you probably can’t help some of it but they’re not here to hurt me. I asked Ulaz to look you over because not only did you have a pretty damn rough morning but I’m more than sure those guards in charge of the prisoners don’t really take that good care of them,” he pats Shiro on the shoulder. “Just let him look. It’s fine. He knows what he’s doing.” 

“How’s your head feel?” Ulaz asks him a few minutes later. Shiro’s already had to put up with his light prodding and studious staring. Shiro will give it to the Galra that he’s handling him gentler than anyone else has thus far, but he still doesn’t like it much. Especially while he’s trying to listen in on the conversation Keith’s having with Thace in the kitchen. As best as he can tell, someone named Prorok is getting a bit too chummy with Thace in his workplace gossip, and Keith very much doesn’t want to delve into why he’s been gone for six months. Even when Thace presses that it’s something important to get out, Keith stands firm in wanting to keep it to himself. Shiro can’t quite find it in him to be sympathetic. He doesn’t want to talk about his entire time here either. 

“Shiro? Does your head hurt? Anything like intrusive thoughts? Disturbing thoughts?” Ulaz presses, leaning down and very slowly edging into Shiro’s field of view. Shiro pulls back from him and Ulaz straightens to his full height again. 

“No,” Shiro says. It’s a lie, but it’s also something he hasn’t been able to puzzle out yet. He’s having very intrusive thoughts and impulses he can’t understand but only in relation to Keith. He’s crazy over Keith and he’s  _ sure  _ it has something to do with whatever ritual they had shared that morning, but he hasn’t found the connection yet, much less the meaning behind it. 

“That isn’t true,” Ulaz says gently. “If you hadn’t been affected by the druid’s magic, you would be dead.” Shiro sets his jaw, pushes the remembered sensation of Keith’s sword sinking into him far to the back of his mind. What does Ulaz care? It doesn’t concern him at all. It’s something Keith did to him. Are they in on it together?

“I don’t know,” is all Shiro will say about it. Ulaz tries to pry him for something more specific, but Shiro insists on keeping his feelings to himself. Ulaz isn’t a part of it and even if he is, Shiro doesn’t want him knowing more than he absolutely has to tell him. Ulaz makes a soft sound like he’s going to say more, but ultimately drops it. 

“I know it’s probably hard to believe but no one here is trying to hurt you,” Ulaz says. Shiro stays stubbornly quiet, watching Keith laugh about something as he talks to Thace. 

After Ulaz declares that Shiro is fine besides needing to catch up on sleep and a better diet than prisoner’s gruel and occasionally nothing (Shiro thinks he needs quite a bit more than that but those things he needs are also outside the realm of possibility), Ulaz and Thace show themselves out. Keith sits at the island and motions that Shiro take the seat beside him, where one of the boxes of food rests in front of it. When Shiro settles in, Keith hands him a dull knife and something looking like a tiny ice pick. Keith uses it as a fork and Shiro thinks he’s showing him an awful lot of trust with what can very easily become weapons. 

Shiro stares at the box of food, the pick in his hand, and then at Keith. He tries to bring up the thought of jabbing it between the small Galra’s ribs, not even a tenth of what Keith had given him that morning. He tries, and tries, but he can hardly bring up the image of it, much less the urge to act out on it. Maybe it had something to do with his wild instincts to protect him. Maybe it was just because Keith was  _ right now  _ treating him better and with more respect than he’d ever gotten since becoming a prisoner in the first place. Keith notices him staring after a few seconds and slows his chewing on what looks like a piece of very nearly raw steak. 

“What?” Keith asks after he swallows. His eyes move to the pick in Shiro’s hand and his ears tense a little. “What are you thinking about?” 

“Why was Ulaz asking me about my head?” Shiro starts, grips the pick tight. He can’t even bring himself to point it at Keith. It makes no sense. He knows he’s perfectly capable of it. He’s been tossed into that high walled colosseum enough that he’s far past the point of hesitating over dealing out pain, over drawing blood, over killing something. “Why am I freaking out over you?” 

“Why can’t you stick me in the side with that thing?” Keith asks, motioning to the pick. Shiro grits his teeth and finally gives up trying to force it. It’s not going to happen right now and his stomach feels like it’s trying to turn itself inside out over him ignoring the food in front of him. He pokes around, stabs something that looks like meat and eats it. It’s minty, but has the texture of chicken. Keith hums to see him eating something. “Because you’re bound to me.” 

“Bound?” Shiro asks. “Is that...whatever that was this morning?” He’s only halfway to admitting it all even really happened, much less that it’s had an effect on him. Going from prisoner, to sacrifice, to roommate of his executioner all in the span of a week is a bit too much to swallow and he’s just now realizing he has a lot to catch up on. 

“I’m still surprised that wasn’t the first thing out of your mouth this morning,” Keith says, he starts to relax. “I’ve never done that before. It was… it was weird.” Yes, weird, Shiro thinks. To Keith, it was merely weird. Maybe he’d do it again and it would be less  _ weird  _ while Shiro’s still trying to puzzle out how he’s still alive and fighting to forget what it feels like to have a slab of steel in his heart. He jabs at another piece of meat with his pick. He doesn’t have any trouble dishing it out on this thing. 

“What does being bound mean?” he asks again, firmer. 

“It means you’re bound to protect me. Those guys with us this morning were druids... uh, like magicians? I’m not sure exactly how their magic works, or why I had to…” 

“Kill me,” Shiro provides dryly. 

“I heard it’s something to do with your instincts, or implanting instincts,” Keith continues on as if Shiro hadn’t said anything. “Before you ask. No, there’s not anyway to break it.” 

“I’m stuck with you,” Shiro says. Keith stiffens again, opens his mouth but then seems to catch himself before he says it. 

“I guess you are,” Keith says. He doesn’t seem happy about this, which Shiro can’t really comprehend. If Keith didn’t want him, then what was the point? Was he just playing around and realized Shiro was going to be around longer than he expected? Was he actually trying to kill him this morning for the joy of it, but failed? Would he get bored and try again? Shiro hasn’t had more than a three bites of food in as many days, but that thought dampens his appetite enough to make him just push his food around. A long silence drags on between them. 

“Why would you buy a slave if you didn’t want one?” Shiro finally asks. That brings up whatever Keith was thinking about earlier. He tugs his ears back into something more aggressive and gives Shiro a sharp look. 

“I didn’t  _ buy  _ you.” Keith says lowly. “Don’t lump me in with everyone else like that.” Don’t lump him in? He’s been abused and dehumanized by every Galra he’s ever met. And none of them twisted a chain around his neck and stuck their sword through him. 

“What am I supposed to think of you then? Am I supposed to thank you for this morning?” Shiro huffs. He sets the pick down because he’s gripping it hard enough to make his fingers ache. 

“No! I don’t know what I want with you. I can’t tell you what to think about me either. That’s on you to figure out,” Keith growls. 

“Right. It’s not on you to know what to do with a slave before you go pick one up. It’s just a piece of property. It’s a pet. If you treat it good enough, it’ll just be happy,” Shiro says. Keith hardly gives him time to take a breath before his patience snaps. 

“I didn’t even ask for you! Remember when I told you I’ve been gone for six months? I did something while I was gone and Zarkon liked it enough to give me a trophy for it.  _ You.  _ I never wanted a slave, especially not one that constantly gets in my way and pushes me around and always wants to be in my space. Especially not one that’s,” Keith grits his teeth. “That’s stuck to me. You’re stuck with me for the rest of  _ my  _ life too, you know? I’ll never be rid of you. I have to put up with you being suspicious of my friends and anyone who even wants to look at me. For the rest of my life. I have to drag you around with me. For the rest of my life. Because you’ll have a fit if I don’t. You’re not  _ anything  _ that I would ever want to burden myself with.” 

Shiro doesn’t have anything to say to that, but Keith doesn’t give him the chance to say something even if he did either. Keith sets down his utensils, hops off the stool and crosses the room to the office. Shiro expects him to lock himself in, but he doesn’t even close the door. He can’t, because Shiro knows he’s right. If he were to close it, those anxious thoughts would wave over him until he forced to door open just to check on him even though they’re both perfectly aware that there can’t possibly be anything in there to harm him. 

He shouldn’t care, but he kind of does, both for Keith and for himself. He almost  _ wants  _ to be sympathetic to Keith. For all he knows, Keith could be telling him the total truth. Maybe he was just dumped into Keith’s lap. Maybe he is more of an intruder, more of a burden on him, than anything else. But maybe Keith’s just being manipulative. Shiro’s not going to be the one to give in on this. Keith might be unhappy with him, he might not, but Shiro knows for sure he’s the one here that’s been through more bullshit. Keith was never a prisoner. Keith was never made to fight for his life over and over again, only to be prodded at and experimented on as a reward. Keith wasn’t a slave. 

As long as that door is open, Shiro doesn’t care what Keith does, much less what he thinks. They’ll have to figure this out eventually because it’s true that neither one of them can just get up and walk out of this, but right now, Shiro isn’t interested in making up with him. He forces himself to eat the food in front of him. 

They don’t talk that night, and Shiro curls up on the couch because the day bed in the office is too far away from Keith’s bedroom to make him comfortable. At least on the couch, he can see Keith where he lays in bed, his face lit up by the soft light of his tablet as he reads long into the night.

* * *

 

Early the next morning, another sentry comes to the door. Shiro’s sore from sleeping on the couch, still angry at Keith. He’s not sure if it’s from being more well rested or pure irritation that keeps him more in check this time, but he’s able to keep himself from shoving in bodily between Keith and the robot as a large package is exchanged between them. Keith steps back, lets the door close and walks past Shiro to the living room. He drops the package to the floor with a soft  _ whumph.  _ Whatever’s in it doesn’t have much weight. 

“That’s yours, it should have come last night, but I don’t think you’ll find much of a reason to complain about it,” Keith says coolly, pointing to the package. It’s the first words Keith’s said to him since their argument yesterday. “So help yourself.” Keith leaves him to it and tosses the blanket Shiro had slept with aside to settle on the couch. Shiro hesitates, then sits on the opposite end of the couch from Keith and pulls the package towards himself, cautiously pulling it open. 

The first thing he finds is a clear bag of toiletries. Several bars of soap like the one from yesterday, but each one a different color and, presumably scent. A comb, a copy of the toothbrush and more of the paste he’d seen in Keith’s bathroom the day before. A couple more jars he can’t quite identify yet. Shiro glances to Keith as he sets the bag aside, but Keith is acting like he’s not paying attention to him. 

The bulk of the package is made up by a gray and black blanket that, even though it’s folded tightly in a film of plastic is still thick. Shiro unwraps it and finds that it feels fleecy and smells of clean linen. Keith’s still acting like he has nothing to do with it, but now Shiro’s starting to find it more amusing than irritating. 

The rest of the package is several sets of clothes and this relieves Shiro more than anything. There’s another suit like he would normally wear as a prisoner, but the fabric of this new one is softer and more supple. There’s a tunic as well, underwear, something looser that looks kind of what Keith went to sleep in last night. All of it nicer than what he’s been given as a prisoner. 

He was kind of expecting Keith to provide a few basic things for him, but the quality of the clothes are more than he was thinking of, and the blanket is especially nice. He sighs and sets the new jumpsuit in his lap, comparing the softer, thicker fabric to the rough and worn material of the one he’s wearing. 

“Thank you,” Shiro says. Keith doesn’t preen, or seem particularly pleased with himself over Shiro gratitude, but he does finally loosen up a little and leans into the arm of the couch. 

“You’re gonna be more expensive than I had thought,” Keith says, “but I guess that’s just what happens when Zarkon decides to grace someone with a trophy. Everyone ends up spending money to polish it.” Shiro frowns lightly. 

“You think I’m a trophy?” he asks. Keith flicks his ear as he thinks of his answer.

“I don’t think it. I know it. Bonded slaves like you are really, really expensive because it’s such a pain in the ass to make one, but Zarkon gave you to me as a show of his favor. If I didn’t take good care of you, it would be an insult to him and everyone would know it,” Keith explains. 

“You really care what he thinks?” Shiro asks. The look that crosses Keith’s face is partly surprise and partly something uncomfortable before he pushes it back to something more neutral. Did he hit on a sensitive nerve?

“About as much as I care about my own pelt,” Keith says, then shoos him. “Go change into something better than what you’re wearing. I’m tossing the old one out.”

* * *

 

“Were you a scientist?” Keith asks him a couple days later. He’s working in his office. He’s been sitting at his desk, reading and occasionally typing for the past few hours while Shiro curled up on the bed behind him and tried to puzzle out just what he was doing. The question takes him off guard, because as far as he knew, Keith knew next to nothing about him. He almost thinks the question is aimed for someone else. Maybe he’s taken a call at some point and Shiro hadn’t noticed. But when he doesn’t answer for several seconds, Keith pushes back from the desk enough to spin his chair around and look at him. “Shiro?” 

“What for?” he asks. He’s still only a slave. So many other Galra have asked him questions like these, but Shiro’s always been convinced they were going to use any information he gave them for no good purpose. Keith’s brow furrows in slight irritation.

“I’m not allowed to ask you questions?” Keith asks, then leans back in his chair a little as he thinks. “How about this. I ask you a question, but you get to ask me one as well. You can answer and not answer whatever you want, but you have to give me the same privilege. So, were you a scientist at home?” 

“Yes, but I was a pilot too,” Shiro answers. How would Keith guess that? He supposes there couldn’t be too many occupations they could have run into as first contact. Keith perks up a little at his answer. 

“I’m a soldier, but I like flying in my spare time,” Keith says. The tablet he’s been reading for the past few days is on the desk, Keith plays his fingers around the edge of it. “I haven’t had much spare time recently.” Shiro isn’t terribly impressed. He hasn’t had a whole lot of free time either. 

“Were the two with you your family?” Keith asks. Shiro stiffens at the mention of the Holts. Does he have information on him somewhere? Maybe someone handed it over once he became Keith’s personal slave. 

“What’s your family like?” Shiro asks instead. Keith shrugs. 

“Numerous and diverse.” Shiro keeps his mouth shut and Keith quickly catches on that he’s not satisfied. “I’m an orphan. I was raised by my uncle and his mate. He’s my only blood relative, the rest are more of a very tight knit community. Is that okay for you?” 

“The Holts are my friends. My only family at home is my father,” Shiro says then, after a moment of thought. “Could you find them? They were sent to a work camp somewhere.” Keith hums, taps his short nails on the desk. 

“Not without risking my skin,” Keith says. Shiro’s heart sinks a little because Keith’s tone is clear that he’s not a point where he’s willing to risk said skin for him. “What’s Earth like?” That’s definitely suspicious because anyone who’s ever heard him refer to his home planet as Earth had always brushed it off as unimportant.

“Hopefully just how I left it. Where are you getting this from? I haven’t told you anything about myself.” Keith picks up the tablet and waves it a little. 

“Ulaz has been your doctor for a really long time. It might be surprising, but he’s actually been listening to you and writing it all down. Do you want to read it?” Keith asks. Shiro looks at the tablet, wonders if Keith really means that about sharing. Would he even want to read it in the first place? He knows for sure that there’s gaps in his memories. Maybe the answers are in there, but he’s not exactly keen on being reminded of it. He figures they’re missing for a good reason.

“No, I don’t want to know just what you’ve been doing to me,” Shiro says. Keith stares at him then his ears drop a little as if he’s realized what he’s asked. 

“I’m sorry, I should have figured you wouldn’t want to delve right back into it very much,” he says quietly. He sets the tablet aside and turns back to the computer, seemingly going back to his work. Shiro thinks that’s the end of it and settles into the silence that overtakes the room. He watches Keith read, the way his ears twitch around as he reads like a physical manifestation of him sorting information out. 

“I’m sorry about the other day too,” Keith says, still staring at his screen. Shiro watches him, tossing around for what in particular he’s referring to. “The whole thing with the me not picking you and you being a burden and stuff.” 

“You’re apologizing for that?” Shiro asks. Keith was his master, he didn’t owe Shiro anything. But he’s not going to say he’s completely over that either. It had felt a little unfair for Keith to snap at him and tell him he was getting in the way when he hardly knew what was going on. Those irrational thoughts have settled quite a bit over the past few days, but the first day or so had been brutal. 

“Yeah, I’m apologizing for that,” Keith says. He tips one ear back as Shiro sits up on on the edge of the day bed, glances at him over his shoulder before he turns back to his reading. He looks somewhat shy making this apology. It’s something he’s clearly been thinking about. “That wasn’t very fair of me to try and pin everything on you like that. I mean, it’s all kind of true. I really didn’t ask for you, or even know I was getting you until just a few minutes before we met. I…don’t know what I’m doing here. I’ve never had a slave. I’ve never wanted a slave. They’re too much work and it’s just...weird. The thought of owning someone else.” 

“I don’t know what I’m doing here either,” Shiro admits. “You don’t really act like I’m a slave all the time.” He has to give Keith that much. Keith didn’t try to manhandle him or control him through fear or shackles. It’s not anything like when he was a prisoner. He can’t trust Keith, but he’s been having a growing revelation that he can be more comfortable around him than anyone else he’s met in a long time. 

“I don’t want to and just... I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t  _ want _ a slave and I’m still actually pretty pissed that I have to have you around all the time but it’s not like you asked for it either. I hurt you, and then I tried to blame something you couldn’t help on you. I feel pretty bad about that,” Keith admits. 

“What therapist did you talk to to come up with that?” Shiro asks. Keith sits up and shoots him a light glare. 

“I don’t need to talk to a therapist to deal with your smartass,” Keith huffs. They stare at each other for a few seconds then Keith pouts and gives in first, looking to the side. “I’m am sorry.” 

“Then I’m sorry for trying to lump you in with everyone else too,” Shiro says. Keith visibly relaxes and goes back to work.

* * *

 

“I’m going to watch a movie,” Keith announces the next day. He says it in the voice Shiro’s coming to recognize as him trying to be especially bossy. The voice that says shut your mouth, I’m the one in control here. He normally uses it when he has to open the front door for something to try and mitigate Shiro’s urges to keep him from doing exactly that. As if Shiro has any choice in the matter. 

“Why do you say it like that,” Shiro asks as Keith dumps the comforter off his bed onto the couch. Shiro’s realized it’s the same kind of blanket he gave him, except Keith’s is a deep red. He can’t help but appreciate that Keith is giving him something he uses himself. Keith curls up in it with his tablet, taps at the screen a few times and Shiro jumps a little when a panel slides back from the wall and reveals a bigger screen. 

“Because I’m watching it, and if you watch it too is something you just get to decide for yourself,” Keith says. The screen comes on and Shiro squints at the title card of the movie. He can’t read the script, of course, and though the colors and shape of the text make him think of an action movie, context from Earth very rarely means much of anything to the Galra. 

“This isn’t usually the kind of thing I would watch,” Keith adds as the movie starts to play. “But Thace smuggled it in for me while I was gone and he’ll hound me until I actually watch it.” 

“Smuggled?” Shiro asks. The text fades off screen and Shiro watches wide-eyed as the movie truly starts. He’s only ever seen the inside of Galra ships, the only other planets the rocky surfaces in his own solar system. The rainforest he sees on the screen is nearly mind blowing. Plants and flowers he’s never seen against an alien sky. 

“Because the only thing that’s actually allowed on this ship is crap propaganda. If you want to watch anything with meaning, you have to sneak it in,” Keith says, completely nonplussed by the same images that have Shiro totally mesmerized. 

The first twenty minutes or so look like the action movie he was expecting, but it quickly shifts to something more romantic. It’s a bit hard to keep track of a couple of the more exotic names, but he gets the gist of their budding romance. The male lead is a scaly, rough looking mercenary on the run from the law. His love interest is a tall, powerful, Amazonian type from the planet in the opening scenes. Somehow, the mercenary owes something of a life debt to the Amazonian woman. But he knows some kind of secrets about her as well? And that makes her treat him kindly, even though she’s irritated to have him following her around? At any rate, they end up on the run together from the Galra empire, falling in love along the way. There’s even those familiar tropes of kissing in the rain and everything. It’s sappy at times, but Shiro can’t complain when it’s offset with heavy action scenes in between.

Shiro actually likes the movie quite a bit, even though he doesn’t have enough context to fully understand some of the more nuanced scenes but, when he looks at Keith, he’s nearly growling. “What’s wrong?” Shiro asks. 

“Thace really thinks he’s funny, doesn’t he?” Keith huffs. Shiro can’t quite understand what part of the movie he’s worked up about. He turns off the movie but switches it to another program, some kind of documentary about an animal looking remarkably like a lion, aside from the six eyes and two tails. Shiro shivers with a sense of surrealism. 

“I don’t really follow,” Shiro asks, looking away when the lion opens it’s mouth and makes a startled quack. “Why is he funny?” 

“Because he knows perfectly well romance doesn’t work when people are forced to be together.”

* * *

 

“I’m going back to work tomorrow,” Keith announces one morning, about a week after Shiro had first woken up in his house. They’re both sitting at the island again and Shiro is poking at something that had started out looking like eggs when Keith had pulled them out of the fridge, but wound up looking like soot colored grits by the time he was done with it. Shiro’s been wondering if that’s how it’s supposed to be or if Keith is really just a terrible cook. 

“Am I supposed to stay here or what?” Shiro asks. Keith shrugs, looks between his mostly empty plate and the plate Shiro’s hardly touched. 

“I planned on taking you with me, but if you think you can stay here, I really don’t care either way,” Keith says. Shiro knows right off the top of his head he can’t manage it, but if given a choice between staying in an apartment where he knows he’ll be left alone and going out to work with Keith and coming into contact with  _ everyone else  _ on the ship...

“I want to stay here,” Shiro says quietly.  He eats some of the gritty eggs and wrinkles his nose. They taste burnt. Keith chuckles, but he’s not sure if it’s because of his reaction or the thought that Shiro’s capable of leaving Keith to be on his own all day. 

“You can’t stay here until you can prove you won’t freak out the instant you can’t see me,” Keith says. Shiro gives him a curious look. 

“I’m fine. I’m better off here than messing with your co-workers,” Shiro says. 

“I know, but watch this and see if you still think that,” Keith hums. He hops off the stool and pads across the room. Shiro watches as he goes to the front door, unlocks it, and steps out into the hallway. 

It takes a couple of seconds for it to sink into Shiro’s mind that Keith has just left the apartment. He’s not gone into his bedroom to sleep, or into the office to work just out of sight. He’s left the apartment altogether. Shiro hardly knows what’s out there, but none of it is the safe sort of retreat he’s managed to keep together in this particular set of little rooms. Where did Keith go? Who’s out there? How hard would it be to find him again? He  _ wants  _ to stay where he is. He wants to show Keith that he’s absolutely under control and that no binding is going to control him. He wants to play it cool, like alarm bells aren’t rattling around in his head.

_ Find Keith. _

_ Make sure he’s safe. _

_ Bring him back here where you can keep track of him.  _

Shiro’s out of his seat and at the front door before he realizes it. He’s going full throttle, prepared to sprint down the hall to try and catch up with Keith the instant he can slip through the opening door. 

Keith is six feet outside, waiting patiently in the middle of the hallway. He knew Shiro would come get him because when the door opens, his expression is absolutely smug. 

“I counted to twenty,” Keith purrs, stepping back into the apartment and ignoring when Shiro can’t help but press his hand at the small of his back to try and herd him in a bit faster. “I go to work at nine, so wear that tunic out tomorrow. You’re gonna get to meet some pretty fun people.” 


	3. In the Office

The way Keith gets ready for work in the morning is a bit at odds to how Shiro’s used to seeing Keith handle a lot of things on his own, which seems to fall somewhere between indifferent and outright apathetic. Keith is up and in the shower while Shiro is still curled up on the couch, squinting at the vague shapes in the darkness of the apartment. He spends more time grooming himself than Shiro’s ever seen, making sure his clothes are straight and his hair lays just so. It reminds him of his own time in the Garrison, waking up before six in the morning just to make sure he was freshly shaved and had time to fix his uniform. So he finds himself falling into that same habit alongside Keith. There’s something comforting in rekindling habits he’d thought had been completely abandoned since leaving Earth.

Instead of a slave being dragged along by a chain, standing in front of the mirror besides Keith while he shaves feels more like he’s going through his morning routine with his roommate. Keith ignores him completely, but he’s neither surprised nor bothered by it. Keith just seems to lack the energy to constantly remind him of his station. Waking up in the morning and being able to not only help himself to a hot shower, but also get himself dressed and ready to just leave the house and  _ do  _ something, has Shiro in a good mood. While Keith looks tired while he lingers at the door, his hair clean and fluffy and dressed in the light armor all Galra seem to wear, Shiro is feeling perky and better dressed in his new tunic than he has in months. Keith picks up on his mood and frowns lightly. 

“You haven’t been out in public for awhile,” Keith points out. That is enough to dampen Shiro’s mood a little and he pauses, waiting for Keith to open the door and lead the way out. “I don’t know what you’re expecting but I need you to remember a couple things.” Shiro frowns. It’s certainly not earth he’s coming back too. In this moment, it’s feels almost like Keith’s got his fingers on his leash, seconds away from unclipping it and letting him stretch his legs, but Keith’s right. What is out there? Nothing but more Galra. Surely, no one that cares about him. 

“Don’t act up. I actually have a halfway decent reputation to maintain,” Keith continues. “A lot of people know you, but you’re still just my slave. If people think I don’t have any control over you, they’ll hold it against me and I  _ really  _ don’t need any enemies, okay?” Keith growls. “Even if you start freaking out over being in the middle of a bunch of people, try to keep it cool until we get to the office.”

“It’s been a week,” Shiro insists. He bites back the irritation threatening to crawl up the back of his neck at the phrase ‘just a slave’. “I think I’ll be fine.” Keith rolls his eyes and opens the door. 

Shiro’s never been out in these hallways, not out in any hallway, without being restrained and tightly guarded. But right now he’s dressed comfortably, his hands are free and there’s only a few Galra in the halls. Not even the sentries are lurking around in the personal quarters. Keith sets a brisk pace and Shiro sticks close to him even as he thinks about how easy it would be to just wander off. As much freedom as he’s ever had in a year and he can’t bear to let Keith get too far away from him to really enjoy it. 

At the end of the hall, Keith sets his palm to a console in the wall and tall doors open onto an empty elevator. Shiro follows Keith into it, but as the doors close behind them, conflicting feelings rise in his chest. On one hand, it’s just the two of them locked in a tiny room. Keith can’t go anywhere, and there’s not any place he can hide from Shiro. He thinks that, if the elevator were to close, he would probably be more happy that he’s stuck in here alone with Keith where he’s safe than he would be concerned over being trapped. But at the same time, it’s early morning and surely there’s more going on on other floors and sooner or later he’s going to be confined in a very small place with Keith and who knew how many other unfamiliar Galra.

As if reading his thoughts, the elevator lurches to a halt and the doors slide open. A slim female Galra stands before them. She’s darker than Keith by several shades, aside from the cream colored ears set atop her head. Her hair is nearly white and thick, softly waved down past her shoulders. She’s dressed in a similar uniform to Keith though where Keith’s is tinged red, hers is a deep blue. In one hand, she holds a small metal cage that reminds him of a cat carrier. 

“Oh, this was a bad idea,” Keith mutters to himself. The female Galra sets her eyes on Shiro, smiling at him as she steps onto the elevator. The cage gives a mechanical chitter; something scratching rapidly around inside. For every step she takes, Shiro takes an equal one back until he’s got Keith shoved into the corner, his whole body serving as a barrier between the two. She doesn’t try to press too close, instead pausing in the middle of the elevator as the doors slide shut behind her. Keith sets his hands on Shiro’s back and gently tries to press him off, but Shiro doesn’t budge and he quickly seems to decide it’s not worth the fight. 

“Warden Nis,” Keith greets over Shiro’s shoulder. Instead of continuing to press at his back, he slips his arms around Shiro’s chest, loosely holding him back like he thinks Shiro’s going to lunge at the interloper. “Don’t mind him. He’s just high strung.”

“He’s new, isn’t he,” the woman purrs. She doesn’t look down at Shiro with the pity or distaste he’s used to getting from the Galra. Instead she looks just short of delighted. She reaches out for him. He flinches back, pinning Keith into the corner hard enough to make him huff, but Nis isn’t swayed. She grips Shiro’s chin in long fingers and tips it up to look her in the eye. Shiro’s skin crawls. He shoves back his instinct to pull away because still, he’s serving as a wall between her and Keith. “I always did think Champion was pretty. So good in the Arena too. I was so disappointed when they announced he was retired.” Shiro shudders and gives in to the goosebumps rising on his skin when she mentions the Arena. He tries to tip his head and pull away but Nis tightens her grip, tips of her claws digging into his cheeks. “I’m glad to see he’s with you. How’d you get him?” she asks Keith, flicking her eyes over his shoulder to where Keith’s still panting in the scant space behind Shiro.

“Last deployment went well-” Keith curls his fingers in Shiro’s tunic and tries to squeeze to the side. “Shiro- get off! You’re choking me-” Nis takes that as a hint and straightens up as she takes a step back. The crate she holds shudders with more of that metallic clicking, and whatever is in it whirrs and clicks. Shiro thinks of a large bug and shivers. Keith pushes him off enough to breathe and while he moves out besides Shiro, Shiro keeps close to his side. 

“They’re so cute when they’re new,” Nis says. “Mitya was so clingy for weeks. I couldn’t help but want to spoil him.” Shiro fights the urge to wrinkle his nose. She’s talking about him like he’s some kind of pet. He glances to Keith to try and get a read on him, but if he’s thinking anything, he’s not showing it. 

“What are you doing without him then? I haven’t seen you in quite awhile,” Keith says, his tone polite. Nis shrugs and her smile fades. 

“He’s been so sick lately I don’t know what to do with him. I had to leave him at the lab to watch over the prisoners while I presented this.” She holds the crate up. Shiro sees a flash of red light peek through the thin slits in the sides, as something slim and metallic loops around itself inside. Shiro tries to nudge Keith a bit further away from it, but Keith goes stiff and stubbornly stays where he is. Nis chuckles at his reaction. “The Multiplex Intelligence Technology.” 

“You finished the MITs already?” Keith asks. Nis seems to take a quiet satisfaction at seeing Shiro bristle at her crate and keeps it held out just a bit too close to him while whatever’s in it scratches along the walls.

“Had to for the conference today,” she tips the crate and whatever’s in it chirrs when she looks in. Shiro finds it oddly affectionate. “You know, the tech isn’t all that new, but the AI is something I’m really proud of.”

The elevator lurches to a stop again. Keith starts for the door and Shiro nearly has to rush to keep himself between him and Nis. She’s amused, chuckling at his efforts as they disembark. “Well, tell me how it goes later, okay? I want to hear what everyone thinks of that AI of yours.” Keith says. Nis waves and Keith continues down a larger, more crowded hall. 

“I don’t want to hear about her AI,” Keith says. Shiro would have thought Keith was talking to himself if he didn’t glance Shiro’s way. With so many more Galra milling around in the halls, he’s nearly tripping over Keith trying to keep track of everything. The sentries have blasters. There’s too many people near that doorway. How close are they to the outside of the ship? What would a breach in the hull do here? “She’s so obsessed with those MITs she creeps me out with it. I wouldn’t be surprised if her lab’s already crawling with those things.” 

“What is it? I couldn’t see it very well in that crate,” Shiro says, half listening to Keith and half trying to steer him through the crowd so he always has a little buffer of space to work with in case someone lunges for Keith. Keith only sometimes takes his suggested directions. 

“Eh, I don’t know how to describe it in a way you’d understand,” Keith says. As he walks, he motions with his hands, holding them about a foot apart. “They’re little sentries. Spies. Nis likes her tech and she likes to use it to snoop.” Keith nudges Shiro in the side as they come up on a smaller hall. “Down that way. We’re going to the temp offices.” 

“I don’t like how she touched me,” Shiro announces when they get back to a less crowded area. He scrubs his cheek and is surprised to see a half dried smear of blood on his thumb. She’d pricked him with her nails. Keith slows as they come up on a tall door. He touches the console to the side and it slides open. 

“You’re gonna have to get over that. To most of these people, you’re just my property,” Keith says. Before they walk in, Keith looks up at Shiro over his shoulder. “Now shut up. I’m busy.” Shiro follows him into a large room dotted through with little clusters of desks. Shiro’s caught off guard by how  _ familiar  _ it feels. It’s just like the instructor’s office back home at the Garrison. Everyone has a desk, but not their own office. Desks on desks, each with their own screen to work on, some of them decorated with little personal effects. He would have never guess that an advanced alien civilization wouldn’t have evolved past cluttered business offices. 

Keith approaches another Galra sitting behind a taller, round desk and gives him his name. The office secretary looks like he’s about to fall asleep behind his desk and the day has hardly started yet. His blasé attitude makes Shiro a little homesick for the long days killing time during weekend hours at home, when he’d had nothing to do besides reread old emails and play minesweeper. Keith takes a key from the secretary and heads across the bigger room towards a row of private offices set into the far wall, each with a door and a large window looking in. 

Most of the office ignores them, but as they cross the room several of the Galra glance up from their desks and lock eyes with him. One nudges his neighbor, points to where Shiro stands behind Keith as he opens the door to one of the offices.  Either they recognize him or Keith but he doesn’t like the attention. Keith steps into the office and Shiro follows him in, though he lingers in the doorway. 

It’s a small, bare office, with just a desk, a computer console and an extra chair set in the corner. Keith tosses the key card on the desk and takes a seat behind it. It’s all slightly too big for him; Shiro’s yet to see Keith come up even to the shoulder of anyone else on this ship. Keith scoots his chair up close to the desk, crosses his legs in the chair where anyone standing in the doorway couldn’t see, and starts fiddling with the cuff of his sleeve. 

“Sit down,” Keith says and tips his head to the extra chair. “The exciting part is over.” Shiro closes the door behind him and sits. Through the window, several of the Galra in the larger office are peering in. They’re looking at him, pointing and talking to each other. Shiro sits stiffly and stares back. What do they expect him to do? He’s not in the Arena anymore. His only job right now to sit pretty and keep them from trying to come into the office. He glances to Keith, but for all the interest he shows he hasn’t noticed anything. He’s more concerned with getting the computer on, scrolling through lines of texts. Maybe he’s checking whatever the Galra have by way of email. 

“What are you doing here?” Shiro asks, still watching the others outside. Some have moved on, some are talking. One waves at him. Shiro bristles, glancing between them and the door. How could he lock it?

“Waiting to hear from Vikit,” Keith says, staring at his screen. He scrolls, scrolls some more. Shiro can’t read any of the text on the screen, but Keith must not like whatever he’s seeing because his ears go stiff and turn back a little. “And, I’m trying to get in contact with my lieutenant, Sendak, but for some reason,” Keith’s voice takes on somewhat of a mocking tone. “He has decided to completely ignore his boss the minute I leave him on his own.” 

“You’re a high ranking officer then?” Shiro asks. Keith stiffens, gives him this almost pedantic look, then seems to remember what little context Shiro’s going on. 

“I’m a commander,” Keith starts, holding up one finger. “Sendak’s my lieutenant. He’s with the rest of my troops about seventy light years from here.” A second finger, and Shiro tries to wrap his mind around the fact that Keith’s thrown out an amazing distance like  _ seventy light years _ like it’s just an everyday occurrence. Keith raises a third finger. “He’s running things from my last deployment since Zarkon called me back here. As far as I know, it’s just to pick you up. I don’t know why I haven’t gotten orders to go back out there yet.”

“Who’s this Vikit then?” Keith turns back to his screen, typing something out rather violently. 

“He’s a commander too, but he’s retired from the field. Seniority and everything. So he stays here in this temp office and finds things to do for people who don’t have anywhere in particular to be,” Keith says. Clearly, he doesn’t like the fact that he’s stuck here. His writing grows longer, some bits of the texts glowing a darker black against the red that seems to be the standard. “He’s the master of busywork.” 

“But...you have somewhere to be. Whatever you’ve been doing for the past six months?” Shiro asks. Keith’s screen blips and the message he was writing closes out. Shiro can only imagine he’s writing whoever Sendak is a strongly worded letter. 

“Like finish construction on a really, really important trading post? Making sure the natives don’t organize an uprising and burn everything to ground? Keeping Sendak’s stupid leash tight? Yeah, I have a lot of very important things I could be doing right now, but instead I’m just sitting in an empty office waiting on a grouchy old man to come in here and tell me to take invento-”

The door hisses open and Shiro’s out of his chair and across the room before he even registers what’s going on. He nearly hits the hulking Galra in the doorway full in the chest before he catches himself. He fills the doorway completely and has to duck his head a little in the doorway and, when Shiro doesn’t move back out of his way fast enough, a massive hand settles on his chest and nudges him back out of the way. Shiro growls, steps back out of his reach, but keeps himself between the newcomer and Keith, who hasn’t moved at all from his desk. 

“Good morning, Commander Vikit,” Keith greets. Shiro tips his head back to look Vikit in the face. He meets the standards for tall and dark, but the handsome bit seems to have been left somewhere in his youth. His face is roughly featured and somewhat violent looking even before Shiro adds in the scars left by old claws leading under his chin and down the left side of his neck. His hair is short cut and what was one dark is speckled through with white that gathers thickest at his temples and around elfish ears. Shiro thinks of a grizzled war hero on steroids, but Keith is hardly bothered by the huge intruder. 

“When did you get this?” Vikit asks. He points to Shiro, but doesn’t look at him. Keith glances between them. Shiro retreats further. In the window someone of another race of alien is squinting in at him. Shiro immediately thinks of a crocodile when he sees the long, triangular snout, slitted, sharp looking green eyes and the sand colored scales covering every inch of his skin. Probably standing only a few inches taller than himself, even though his stance is hunched over with a thick neck and shoulders. Shiro realizes they’re dressed in the same tunic and jumpsuit.

“When I got in last week,” Keith answers. “Don’t...He’s still pretty jumpy, so sorry about him rushing you like that.” That, and the way Vikit looks down on him, makes him feel like a dog that gets overexcited about visitors. 

“He’ll figure it out faster if you keep a tight leash on him,” Vikit says. Keith gives this helpless look like there’s not anything to be done about Shiro. “But I suppose it would be hard for someone like you to manage that. Why did Zarkon decide to give  _ you _ a slave? Especially one like Champion?” Shiro presses back the visceral reaction to that nickname. He lingers near the edge of Keith’s desk, nearly standing in the center of their conversation. 

“Oh, he’s well behaved enough,” Keith says, not rising to the jab Vikit’s making at his ability to handle Shiro. “Today’s his first day out in public, so I thought I’d at least give him a grace period.” Vikit growls. 

“You’ll let him run you over then. Keep him in tight before you make him think he can do whatever he wants,” Vikit squint a little, taps his claws together. “That’s how slaves are; they take every little thing you let them get their hands on.” It’s sheer force of will that Shiro doesn’t step back into conversation and remind him that  _ yes, he’s still right here and he can hear him perfectly well. _ Vikit motions to the person standing by the window. “That’s how I’ve always handled Diada. Even though he’s bound to protect me, I can’t give him too much slack.” He’s a slave as well then, Shiro thinks. Keith pulls in a deep breath, lets it out slowly. 

“As much as I would love to hear your advice on handling  _ my own  _ slave, I think I would rather figure out what works best for us on our own,” he says diplomatically. “What about work? You have anything for me to take care of?” Vikit grumbles over having the conversation steered away from him. 

“Go over the stock numbers and vaults eight through ten. You can send a sentry to do the actual counting for you, but I need you to make sure the numbers we have recorded are right. After that you’re in charge of setting aside supplies for a deployment of fifteen or so. And they’re going somewhere hot, so keep that in mind when you put your list together,” Vikit says. A pause where Keith thinks, one ear flicking minutely as if he could pick up on any more information Vikit hasn’t explicitly said.

“For...how long?” Keith asks. 

“I don’t know,” Vikit responds, his tone curt. “They haven’t told me that yet.” 

“Okay? What I would put aside for a six week mission is quite a bit different than six months,” Keith explains. Vikit growls. Diada, the slave standing just outside the office by the window, shuffles around in response to Vikit’s irritation. 

“That doesn’t change what I know right now, Keith. Just put something together. Don’t start thinking you can test me just because Lord Zarkon decided to give an omega a fancy bodyguard,” Vikit warns. Goosebumps race up the back of Shiro’s neck. Vikit has a temper, and he’s starting to realize Keith has somewhat of one too. He backs closer to Keith, who’s gone quiet, his ears pulled back hard against his head. 

“Okay then. Just let me know if they fill you in a little better,” Keith says quietly. Vikit seems pleased enough at that and nods sharply, stepping back out of the office and letting the door slide shut behind him. Shiro watches as Vikit heads across the sea of desks outside, but Diada lingers for several seconds, staring at Shiro. Just as Shiro thinks he’ll go out and talk to him, Diada turns and follows Vikit across the room. Keith blows out a heavy breath and leans back in his chair. He’s fiddling with his shirt sleeve again. 

“He’s kind of a jerk,” Shiro says after the tense silence between them drags on for several seconds. Keith pulls something out of his sleeve that looks like a tiny storage chip and slots it into a divot just off the side of his screen. He still looks angry, his expression tense and pinched around his ears and mouth. 

“All alphas are jerks like that,” Keith growls. His screen flashes blue, then it’s back to the red background like normal. Keith starts tapping through files rather quickly. “Vikit’s a bit worse though. He’s just an old meathead who likes to think things are still the same as they were a hundred years ago.” Another deep breath and, when Shiro mutters something agreeing with him, Keith seems to start calming down a little. Keith had called Vikit an alpha. Vikit had called Keith an omega. He wonders over what that means.

“I hate being in this office. He’s always really pissed me off,” Keith says. Shiro watches what little action is going on the larger office outside for a few more seconds before he decides they’re not getting anymore visitors and settles back into his chair. 

“Does it have to do with him being whatever an alpha is?” Shiro prods. Keith glances at him, then, to Shiro’s surprise, he smiles. It’s softer than the grin Nis had given him in the elevator earlier. More genuine. 

“Probably. Being an alpha just means they have too many of those male hormones clogging their brain up. I think they’re both too bossy and too stupid, but somehow they always want to be in charge of things,” Keith mutters to himself. He goes back to his work then and when Shiro shuffles around, brimming with more questions, Keith ignores him. So an alpha was apparently something like a hyper potent male? What about an omega then? How was Keith different from the others?

* * *

 

“Ulaz, Thace,” a deep voice calls after code words have been exchanged. The datapad lays on the table between them and, even though they’re alone in their apartment in the middle of the night, they have the volume turned down to just within hearing range. “Is it just the two of you there?” Thace taps his nails on the table. 

“Yes, Leader, it’s just the two of us. Keith is back on the main ship now, but he’s busy tonight,” Thace says. Their leader, Kolivan, hums to himself. 

“I heard. He told me when he was transferred back, but I haven’t heard from him since. Is everything still going as planned?” Kolivan asks. Ulaz and Thace exchange glances. 

“For us, yes. Everything is still going along fine. We should have a good amount to send you within a week,” Ulaz answers. “Thace has been given quite a lot of leeway recently,” Thace can’t help but make a proud little expression just for Ulaz. “and he’s told me he’s been able to even get some data from the druid’s files over the last few days.” 

“Something that just comes from some downtime and Prorok listening when I warn him not to just do things on his own recently,” Thace adds. 

“But?” Kolivan prods. As always, he’s not easily impressed, and he doggedly goes after every little bit of information he can get his hands on. “What’s Keith so busy with that he can’t be bothered to contact me as usual? Neither one of you sound particularly worried, so I know he’s perfectly fine.” 

“Well,” Thace starts. “We found out that Zarkon’s called Keith back to the main fleet to give him a slave.” Kolivan goes very quiet, and Ulaz tacks on. 

“So, he’s been busy with him, and hasn’t really had a second alone to contact you.” They can both tell Kolivan’s thinking through how silent his end of the call is. Ulaz thinks that Shiro certainly throws a wrench into the habits they’ve been carefully crafting for years, but what are they to do? He certainly doesn’t hold it against Keith for not wanting to rush and tell Kolivan this news himself. 

“Why?” Kolivan asks. “This is...this is a pain. You need to tell Keith to contact me as soon as he can,” Kolivan presses before either of them can answer his first question. 

“Well, apparently Zarkon thought his work on his last assignment was especially noteworthy, but we can’t figure out just why he called Keith back so early just to make him bind a slave,” Ulaz says. Kolivan growls as soon as he hears the word ‘bound’. Thace adds onto Ulaz’s train of thought.

“We’ve been trying to figure that out for the past week. What about Keith’s work was so special? Other commanders have done more and gotten less for it. And why not simply wait until Keith came back from his assignment on schedule?” Thace explains. 

“He’s gotten too much of Zarkon’s attention. If he decides he still doesn’t want to talk to me, tell him to lay as low as he can,” Kolivan sighs, then after a short pause. “What’s he going to do with the slave? You said they were bound, so he can’t simply find a way to get rid of them?” Ulaz frowns deeply at Kolivan’s response, thinking it’s rather cutthroat. 

“Well, Keith’s slave is a very well known gladiator,” he presses softly. “People are going to notice if he suddenly disappears. Especially Zarkon. It would be too suspicious if a gift from the emperor went missing so soon after he’s given him out. If anything, I think it’s more dangerous to do away with Shiro than keep him and try to find a way to work around him.” 

“Thace?” Kolivan asks. Thace looks at Ulaz and shrugs. 

“I agree with Ulaz. From what I’ve heard, Shiro’s very smart and seems like he’s even tempered. I can’t see him flying off the handle or trying to get too far into our way, especially since he’s essentially forced to take Keith’s side in everything now that they’re together,” Thace says. He’s only met Shiro in person once, the day he was given to Keith, but he’s been hearing bits and pieces of him through Ulaz for months. Kolivan, of course, isn’t terribly happy about their situation taking such a sudden turn. 

“Tell Keith to keep him out of the way until we can find something to do with him,” Kolivan says. “Under no circumstances are you to let him know who you’re working for. This goes for Keith too.”

“Otherwise?” Ulaz asks. 

“Otherwise? Keep going as you were. It sound like you’re making progress, so be ready to send it to me over the next week or so,” Kolivan sighs softly. “Okay, that’s all. I’ll be thinking on what to do with Keith’s slave.” The datapad pings as the call disconnects and Ulaz huffs, pushing it away. 

“‘Keep going as you were,’” Ulaz mimics. “Can he not think of anything else to tell us?” Thace purrs softly, setting his hand on Ulaz’s forearm where it rests on the table. 

“Don’t get ansty on me now. We’ve all been patient for so long, and now we’re finally in a position where we’re not quite so penned in all the time,” Thace assures him. He squeezes Ulaz’s arm and Ulaz lets himself relax a little. 

“You just like throwing your weight around, Lieutenant Thace,” Ulaz teases. The grin Thace gives him in return is devious. 

“It’s a title I’ve worked hard for, why can’t I enjoy it?” Thace says, then he turns more serious. “What  _ are  _ we going to do about Shiro? Keith can’t get a minute apart from him, and we simply can’t work how we used to and keep Shiro from knowing something is up. He’s too smart for that.” 

“We’re just going to have to be careful,” Ulaz says. “For now, let’s try to follow Kolivan’s orders as best we can, but just know that if worse comes to worse, we might have to decide between keeping him and having him know, or finding a way to get rid of him.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should have just named this chapter Exposition. But, now that I've got a lot of the basic things set up and out of the way, I can start pushing the plot along a bit faster, though I also think that it'll probably make the chapters a little bit shorter, but I'm gonna try not to let them get much shorter than this one. 
> 
> So the more I write of this the more I realize there's a some little things that are going on but that I don't necessarily think I'll be able to fit into the story (at least not in a timely fashion) without a really gross dump of exposition. So I made a worldbuilding post on tumblr! I plan on putting FAQ's and some more indepth information about the ocs running around in this verse there, so if you're interested check it out! Here! http://quiddid.tumblr.com/post/158677801959/bound-worldbuilding-post
> 
> I'm fully aware that having an acronym (the MITs) makes no dang sense in the context of Galra language, but I had to have them matching names... It's a creative sacrifice okay. 
> 
> You can find me at quiddid on both tumblr and twitter!


	4. What You Don't Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, I'm sorry this took nearly two weeks to get out. I hit a little bit of a foggy point in general after spring break, but I'm back on track! There's a lot of stuff and drama going on in this chapter so hopefully I made it clear enough that everyone knows what's going on. Keith is such a stressed little muffin. No one will give him a break.

_ Unfortunately, I can’t go into the details of my promotion as that is currently classified information. I look forward to working with you as equals in the future _

_ Commander Sendak _

_ Commander Sendak?  _ Since when was Sendak promoted to commander? What was the point of pulling Keith off of his assignment and promoting his lieutenant in his place? Why was he called back here and not given a new assignment? What did it mean that Sendak had essentially replaced him? 

Keith’s blood runs cold. He lays in bed, lit only by the soft light coming off his datapad. Sendak had finally, finally responded to one of his emails. But instead of actually answering any of Keith’s important questions, like how the trading post was coming along, and how the troops were and if the former rebels were still behaving, Sendak had rather brusquely replied that everything was being handled to  _ his  _ specifications. The underlying message had been clear. 

_ You’ve become redundant and I no longer answer to you. _

It’s just like Sendak to get promoted and then not tell Keith anything about it purely for a power play. At first, Keith isn’t entirely convinced that Sendak’s been entirely truthful that about the classified information bit just by virtue of him being another alpha that now felt they had a leg up on him. But how was he supposed to know otherwise? Usually, it was only polite to let a superior officer know when their second in command was being pulled out from under him like a rug. It was just rude not to. Keith had never been told or given any kind of hint at all that he was no longer attached to his (former) assignment. Never any clue that this trip back to the main fleet was anything other than temporary. 

Keith sets the datapad on the bedside table, Sendak’s message still showing on the screen. There was something more going on here and not knowing was a jab of cold anxiety under his ribs. The only reason to not keep him up to date on any of this would be to keep him unawares. That...was dangerous. It wasn’t right to be taken off his last assignment and his lieutenant promoted into his spot and not have a clear reason for it. Something had to have happened after he had left Sendak and come back to the main fleet. Something big enough to be tagged as classified? 

They weren’t onto the fact he was part of the Blade of Marmora.

Were they?

They wouldn’t give him a bonded slave, only to execute him for treason.

Would they?

Keith shudders bodily and rolls out of bed. There’s no sense in staying in; he’ll never be able to sleep with all these thoughts creeping around in his head. He stands, blinks around the dark room and forces himself to slow and stretch. He works his way through the motions, loosening up his muscles, but he could stretch until he threw his back out and still it would do nothing for his state of mind. He can’t stay in here. He has to go out and do something, even though it’s still… Keith pulls over the datapad from the table and very consciously closes out Sendak’s message without looking at it again so he can see the time. Okay, he has a little less than two hours before wake up call, but it’s not so early that he’s the only one up on this ship.

After a little consideration, he sends a message to Thace to ask if they could meet in, at most, half an hour. It’s something different and Keith doesn’t know if it’s an emergency. Right now, he might just need someone to help smooth out his fraying nerves. 

Now to get Shiro to come with him without letting him know too much of what’s going on. The only people who needed to know of Blade matters were Thace and Ulaz. He couldn’t trust Shiro with that kind of information. It was how his binding worked. Shiro’s only loyalty lie in keeping Keith safe, no matter what. Shiro was, to a good extent, at the whim of those instincts the druids implanted in him, and those who were smart enough could manipulate them. All it would take was a situation where Shiro felt giving up Keith for treason was the lesser evil and it’d be all over for them both. 

Keith sighs to himself, running his fingers through his hair as he makes his way to the bedroom door.

Just over two weeks into their...relationship, and Shiro’s only just now starting to sleep on the spare bed Keith keeps in the office rather than on the couch. Keith isn’t sure if it’s because he’s been uncomfortable sleeping on a firm couch or he’s finally getting relaxed enough to let Keith out of his immediate sight as long as he’s asleep. It’s an improvement but, Keith thinks as he stands in the doorway to his own bedroom and looks across the apartment at the motionless lump of Shiro sleeping in the office, he hasn’t gotten brave enough to close the door on him yet. Somehow, he’s sure Shiro would still rather tear up one of his doors than simply trust that Keith’s completely fine in his own bedroom. 

Keith wonders. Even though Shiro’s dead asleep, would his binding be irritated enough to wake him up if Keith decided to close his bedroom door right now? Or would he just continue sleeping? Could Keith slip out for a couple hours for himself right now or would Shiro come after him, touching around his back and flanks just as he always did when he was trying to herd him around?

There’s no way to know without trying it, and when Keith thinks about journeying out into the dark hallways alone, his nerves draw his lungs up tight. Just like when he was still a kitten roaming the lonely halls of the Marmora base in the middle of the night, haunted by vague nightmares. Too lost to find the safety of his fathers’ nest and too far gone from his own to make his way back. No, Shiro has to come with him, and Keith rationalizes it by thinking Shiro wouldn’t put up with him just disappearing in the early morning hours anyways. Usually when he would get up in the morning, whether he be getting ready for work or just on the weekend, Shiro would be pretty quick to follow suit. The most Keith had ever seen him sleep had been that first morning, when he was first bound. Keith crosses the living room towards the office and even when he lingers close enough to see Shiro’s chest moving underneath the blanket, a soft, steady motion in the dark, Shiro doesn’t wake at all. 

“Shiro?” Keith calls. So him creeping close isn’t setting him off, apparently. Is it just because he’s the one Shiro’s bound to? Or is he really just still sleeping? He knows for sure Shiro never sleeps incredibly deeply; he’ll wake a the lightest sound and Keith knows for sure that even just people walking around in the hall will keep Shiro up at night. Keith wonders closer, his knees nearly touching the bed. Shiro’s curled up on his side, his blanket pulled up to his chest and the corner of it balled up under his head. 

“Shiro,” Keith says softly. No response. It must be because they’re bound, or Shiro’s just comfortable with him. Without thinking much deeper, Keith reaches out and spreads his hand over Shiro’s shoulder. He’s warmer than he looks, considering his lack of fur. His skin is smooth and soft, but only between the scars.  Bumps of past wounds mark his skin and Keith runs his fingers over them. Shiro’s still asleep. So he walks his fingers up a little more, up the side of his neck, where the skin on his throat is paler, softer, thin enough that Keith can feel his pulse under his fingers. 

The edge of his claw bumps over Shiro’s adam apple and suddenly Shiro jerks back with a startled gasp, kicking the blanket off of him as he flails. Shiro catches Keith’s wrist before he can pull his hand back. His grip is monstrous, fingers circling completely around his wrist and halting Keith’s retreat completely. A heavy pause hangs between them as Shiro pants and looks around the space in front of him with wide, worried eyes.

“Shiro,” Keith says evenly. Shiro squints into the dark and his breathing evens out into something more steady. “Did I scare you?” Shiro rolls further onto his back and drops Keith’s wrist. 

“No,” Shiro says and Keith fights to roll his eyes over that lie. “What’s wrong?” He sits up, the blanket pooling around his hips. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Keith says, crossing his arms in front of him. As always, Shiro sounds so sincere in his fussiness Keith can’t fully tell if it’s purely coming from his binding or if Shiro truly means any of it. “I just woke up early and I’m feeling stir crazy.” More like he wanted to do literally anything except stay in the apartment and ache over Sendak’s promotion and what it meant for him. 

“Uhm…” Shiro squints around the room, mulling over his thoughts. “Are we doing something then? What...what time is it?” Keith frowns. 

“A couple hours before morning call,” Keith says. Shiro sighs and Keith realizes that maybe Shiro isn’t really up to being pulled out of bed at such an early hour. “Are you tired?” Shiro shakes his head. 

“No, just let me get dressed,” Shiro says, pushing out of bed and standing. “Where are we going?”

“I thought you’d like it if we went to the gym for once,” Keith says. “Thace asked to meet us there since he’s up anyways.”

Shiro, at least, seems happy enough at the thought of going to the gym, especially when Keith thinks to assure him that there shouldn’t be too many people there just yet. It’s not like Keith actually knows that, he thinks as they near the entrance to the gym. He certainly isn’t one to be awake at four in the morning, much less drag himself to another sector just for physical activity. So there really isn’t any reason to promise Shiro not a ton of people would be there besides his own feelings about being up so early himself. 

But, as they go through the entrance and look into some of the training rooms through huge, glass windows, Keith is secretly relieved to only see a few others inside. Shiro watches them closely as they pass by and Keith is silently thankful when not one of them even bothers to look up at them, too busy in their own routines. Keith pushes in through the door and leads them over to the showers and changing rooms. Shiro pauses seeing that there are three doors.

“Men, Women, Omegas,” Keith explains and he points to each in turn. Shiro makes a curious sound. 

“Alphas don’t get their own? How come?” Shiro asks, squinting at the symbols as if to memorize them. He follows Keith to the door of the omega bathroom, but Keith turns and sets a hand on his chest to stop him. 

“Alphas like to show off, but they won’t put up with omegas taking up their personal space like that. Women won’t either. So we get to have our own even though I don’t think there’s really enough of us to warrant it,” Keith says. He goes to enter, and again Shiro tries to follow him. Keith pushes him back lightly. 

“You can’t come in here. Use the men’s room instead,” Keith says firmly. Shiro balks and resists him. It’s absolutely a lie that Shiro can’t follow him in; he isn’t Galra, his species doesn’t have alphas or omegas and honestly Keith didn’t care enough even if he did to bar Shiro completely, especially knowing that it stresses his binding. But he’s meeting here with Thace and Shiro can’t know of Blade business. “I’ll be just a few minutes, so change quick and I’ll meet you right out here.” He turns and leaves Shiro waiting there like a nervous kitten. 

Thace is the only other person in the changing room, waiting for him on a bench in a secluded corner of the room. He looks perfectly awake, and Keith isn’t surprised. Thace has never been one to sleep much to begin with. He straightens up when Keith rounds the corner and sets a change of clothes on a bench. 

“What’s happened to get you out of bed and into the gym so early in the morning?” Thace asks. If Keith hadn’t known him so well, he would have seemed totally calm, maybe even on the edge of uninterested. But Keith can pick up the hint of anxiety in his voice, a barely there growl on the fading edge of his words. 

“Sendak contacted me last night,” Keith says, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it onto the bench. “He’s been promoted to commander, but…” he says, pausing and putting his hands on his hips in a show of tiredness. “The reason why is confidential apparently.” 

Thace is quiet for a long second, his hands tightening the slightest bit. He’s thinking the same thing Keith is; that people as far up as them don’t typically get promoted unless there’s a very sudden vacancy. “There’s nothing to be done about it,” he says. Keith sighs and strips down to his underwear, shaking out a thinner shirt he’ll work out in. “But...what could he have done?” 

Keith’s fingers shiver a little as he smoothes out his shirt. That exact question had been floating around in his head for the past hour. “I don’t know, and that’s the worst part of it. It could be nothing. Maybe Zarkon just decided to put me somewhere else right now and let Sendak take things over now that it’s calmed down over there.” 

“Or maybe he’s come up with something and sold you out,” Thace finishes for him. Then his fluffy ears flatten a little and he growls. “That jackass. He’s always been so power hungry I could never stand him. I’m wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to stir something up just because he’s been left on his own.” Oddly enough, Thace’s irritation lightens Keith’s mood a tiny bit. Sendak had worn Thace’s patience threadbare once or twice in the past and it was almost amazing how it had never really recovered. 

“It’s had to have happened recently,” Keith says, pulling his pants on and starting into some light stretches. “Maybe even after I came back here. But. He’s there and I’m here, and I’m still trying to figure out where Shiro fits into all of this. Just,” he pops his shoulder and huffs. “I feel like it’s something we need to all keep up on,” Keith says. 

“I’ll pass this along to Ulaz, and try to look into it myself,” Thace says. 

“You can’t get into classifieds,” Keith says. Thace makes a tired huff. 

“No, but Sendak isn’t censored and password protected,” Thace answers. Keith can’t help but chuckle at his defeated expression. 

“You wouldn’t try to pick something up with him again, would you?” Keith asks. “Ulaz would have a fit.” Thace grimaces. 

“Ulaz doesn’t have a say in my work, and if…” Thace motions vaguely. “Sendak, is part of my work, well then, it just has to happen. Ulaz will get over it, and the fact that Sendak is light years away should be good enough to help him get over it.” Thace makes a soft, tired sound. “Knowledge or death. This is what happens if we either take action or let things stay as they are. If something is coming up, I would rather be prepared for it than not.”

“That’s generous of you so early in the morning,” Keith says. Now that he’s dressed, he starts thinking about Shiro in the other room. Did he actually bother to change or was he still waiting just outside the door? Hopefully no one’s decided to give him any trouble. “I appreciate you looking into this for me. Sendak’s like a wall with me; this is the first I’ve heard from him.” 

“It’s just what has to be done,” Thace says and gives him a little smile. He stands and Keith follows him towards the entrance. “I would prefer you try to stay out of trouble though.” They both stop short of the door when they hear voices outside.

“What’s wrong? I figured Champion, of all people, would be ready to spar with us,” someone growls. He perks his ears up and listens closely. Shiro’s right next to the door, and someone’s approached him. Keith waits, half curious why they’ve decided to bother him and and wondering how Shiro’s going to handle this. 

After a short pause; “I’m waiting on someone and I don’t think he would like me just wandering off to spar with you,” Shiro says. He’s putting on a diplomatic voice; the one he uses when any of Keith’s coworkers try to talk to him. Whoever he’s speaking to laugh to themselves. There might be two or three of them, and they sound like they’ve got Shiro close to the door. 

“You mean you’re waiting on Keith. You were in the Arena only a few weeks ago. Did he really whip you so quickly?” one of them laughs. At Keith’s side, Thace makes this long suffering sound under his breath. 

“How did he manage that? I always thought he was kind of a bitch, but to bring Champion under his heel so quickly?” the other says to his friend. Shiro’s quiet for several seconds and Keith wonders what he’s thinking. 

“That isn’t any of your business,” Shiro responds quietly. 

The first starts up again. “Now don’t be like that-” Keith cuts him off by opening the door. Shiro flinches where he’s nearly pressed to the wall. The two Galra speaking to him; at least one alpha from the smell, peer down at him. Even when Keith bristles and pulls his ears back flat to show his irritation, they don’t look too impressed. 

“What I do with my own slave is not any of your business,” Keith bites out. Shiro edges closer to him; he’s trying to do that thing where he constantly tries to get between Keith and whoever he’s talking to. “I brought him here to spar with me,” Keith says a bit calmer. “You’re free to watch, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s off limits to you. Don’t bother him again.” The two of them exchange looks, but before they can have the chance to think if they want to start an argument or not, Keith cuts them off by grabbing Shiro by the front of his shirt and pulling him across the room to some mats. 

“Well, at least you changed,” Keith mutters to himself. The two hasslers are still watching, exchanging looks between each other while they try to think how they feel about an omega pulling what had seemed like a fun target away from them.  Shiro relaxes a little when Keith untangles his fingers from the front of his shirt but still keeps half an eye on the others, and even on Thace as he pushes past them and out of the room, presumably to update Ulaz on the newest plan. Keith is pretty sure Shiro’s not gotten any better about fussing on him and his interactions with literally everyone else; he’s just gotten better at hiding it. “I wanna spar with you. They can watch if they want, so stop paying so much attention to them,” Keith says. Shiro snaps back to Keith. 

“I can’t spar with you,” Shiro says. He says it the same way that he told the alphas he couldn’t spar with them either. Diplomatic. Matter of fact. I’m sorry, but I just can’t manage it. Keith squints. 

“Why...not?” he asks. He drops his arms where he had been stretching his shoulders and Shiro very suddenly seems to realize what he’s done. His eyes wander over to the alphas still watching them, though they’ve creeped closer to them, but still a respectful distance away, near the wall. 

“I-I mean. I want to. It sounds like fun because I don’t really get much of a chance for it since I started staying with you but…” he trails off. 

“You might hurt me?” Keith supplies. He’d been wondering about that; if Shiro’s binding would make him hesitate to even wrestle with him. It’s why he hadn’t bothered to bring a practice sword with him. He’d been half convinced Shiro would have a nervous fit if he’d come at him with it. 

“Well, yeah,” Shiro says. “You’re kinda,” to Keith’s horror, Shiro tips his head down and motions down the length of Keith’s body. One of the alphas chuckle and when Keith looks over, the other is barely containing himself. Keith frowns deeply, flicks his ear and brings his hands up into fists in front of him. Shiro recognizes a fighting stance when he sees one and his whole body tenses in preparation. 

“You’re going to find out very quickly that I’ve been fighting people much bigger and stronger than you my entire life,” Keith growls, just low enough for only Shiro to hear. The man tenses even more. Keith lets him take half a step back before he makes his move. He closes the distance between them in two quick strides. Shiro’s instincts are sharp, his reflexes fast and no doubt honed to a razor edge through a long career in the Arena. He’s already reaching for Keith by the time Keith is making the first swipe. 

Shiro goes to stop him by grabbing his wrist but Keith twists his arm, forces him to grip his upper arm instead. He plants his hand on Shiro’s chest, hooks his heel at the back of Shiro’s leg and pulls it out from under him. He’s not prepared at all and Shiro crumples onto his back. Keith rides that momentum and goes down with him. All he has to do is slide his hand up and he has his claws shoved up under Shiro’s chin. 

The room is quiet for a solid second. Long enough for Keith to notice the way Shiro’s pulse jumps against the point of his claw. His warmth seeping through the thin shirt he’s wearing. The emotion dancing in his gray eyes. Surprise? Not quite. It’s a little warmer. Something tense lingers between them until one of the alphas watching breaks the moment with a thick laugh.

“You’re really gonna let Keith toss you around like that? What kind of Champion are you?” he says. Keith sits up, straddling Shiro’s waist. He backs his hand off his throat and Shiro pulls his eyes off of Keith to look at their viewers. 

“Yeah, Shiro. You really gonna let me toss you around like that, are you?” Keith teases him lightly. A wrinkle forms in Shiro’s brow as he frowns, a cute little knot between his eyes. He sets his hand on Keith’s hip, his palm warm, and pushes him off to the side. 

“You only caught me off guard. Let me try again.”

* * *

 

Nearly a week after the early morning sparring match and Keith is sitting his office, feeling that his head will just crack like an egg under the weight of his boredom. Almost two weeks ago, Vikit had ordered him to take stock of items in several vaults and write a report. Well considering that Keith could simply order a couple of sentries to take down the numbers for him, his time had been spent killing time and trying to keep Shiro from going mad with boredom as well. He’d been able to keep him in a good mood with a steady stream of books (which he couldn’t read, but somehow the audio function on them served him perfectly fine) but mostly Shiro had found Vikit’s bonded slave Diada, the smart mouthed reptilian, as a good source of company. Whenever Shiro couldn’t bear waiting around in Keith’s office they would inevitably find each other just outside the door. Shiro still couldn’t close the door to Keith’s office, or wander very far off from him, but it was better. Shiro could turn his back on Keith and leave him in a room by himself while in public. Slowly but surely, the binding wasn’t irritating him  _ quite  _ so much. 

As little as Shiro was willing to part from Keith, Diada seemed to have little trouble crossing the gap on his own. It wasn’t much of a secret, to Keith, at least, that Diada had nothing to do with his master Vikit beyond what the druids had compelled him to. Where Shiro rarely wandered more than twenty feet from him, Diada seemed most happy when Vikit only had to be in line of sight. Keith watches them through the window of his office.

Shiro’s more tense just outside the door than Diada seems even though Vikit is in his own office on the far side of the room. Keith has come to recognize some of Shiro’s little quirks. Though he doesn’t think that’s hard. Whether it be something to do with Shiro personally or with the human race as a whole, compared to some other races he’s met, Shiro has a tendency to telegraph how he’s feeling even when he’s trying to hide it.

Like now, even though Shiro’s engaged in a rather friendly conversation with Diada, Keith can tell there’s some other emotion running underneath. There’s a tightness in his shoulders and a stiffness in his back; Keith can see the way his muscles bunch even through his tunic. Like the way Shiro’s eyes flick towards him through the window and back to Diada, whose face is marked with a row of fresh, deep cuts. Despite his circumstances, Keith’s realized that Shiro quite the empathetic creature. At first he’d thought his fussing had just been an extension of his binding but now, hearing him talk to Diada, he’s come to see that’s not necessarily the case. Shiro seems more than happy to make friends with just about anybody, it’s just a matter if the other party is willing to indulge Shiro’s need for company.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Shiro asks, his voice somewhat faded when it has to travel through the open door. Keith watches with half an eye as Shiro gently motions to the ugly looking mark across Diada’s muzzle. He turns his ears forward to catch the conversation, but otherwise he tries to look like he’s actually busy when he’s going over the inventory numbers that had come in from the sentries for the hundredth time. It’s either that or deal with Vikit digging through his work before finding him something similarly mind numbing to do while he’s waiting for his next assignment. 

“It’s nothing to be worried about,” Diada’s replies in his thick, gravelly voice. Keith hears the unsure sound Shiro makes at that as his eyes rove across lines and lines of data. The numbers never change. They match what their records say they should have. There’s nothing wrong there. “Besides,” Diada continues, “Who would I complain to, Vikit? He’s the one who puts me into the Arena in the first place. I’m not dying Shiro, just a little uglier.”

“Diada…” Shiro sighs. Keith glances up to see Shiro looking across the room towards Vikit’s office. He’s not thinking of talking to him, is he? No. He knows perfectly well the temper Vikit has and thus far, Shiro’s been smart enough to steer clear of him. Keith watches for a solid second as Shiro thinks, then lets out a long breath. “I can’t help but worry about you.” Diada laughs. 

“That’s too kind of you,” Diada says while Shiro frowns. “Looking from the outside in, everyone around here always makes you out as some kind of bloodthirsty monster, but honestly you’re so tenderhearted I don’t know how you even made it this point.”

“You really shouldn’t say it aloud like that,” Shiro says, softer. Keith turns back to his work, a small smile pulling at his lips at Shiro’s slightly scandalized tone. “I’m kind of counting on that so most of these people leave me alone.” Diada’s still laughing, a rough, thick sound. Keith scrolls to the side and, purely out of boredom, starts looking through the times the sentries logged when they took inventory. How long had it taken them to go through all those supplies?

When Keith realizes the numbers don’t add up, his heart feels like it sinks down to his knees. This...can’t be right. Well, they were right. Everything was as it should be on the surface, but once Keith started looking into the times the numbers were taken down, the weirdness started showing up. As he expected, the robotic sentries could go through inventory at incredible speeds. Keith squints at the timestamps. Three seconds apart...two and half seconds apart… five seconds apart. Then there was the weird one. The computer said they should have three pallets of fifty boxes of...some kind of heavy ammunition. The sentries took down just that. Three pallets of fifty boxes. All there. But the count had been taken down a full day after the rest.

Why? Keith’s heart clenches tight in his chest. Shiro’s still talking outside the office, something about a book he’d listened to the other day, but Keith isn’t taking much in besides that anymore. He scrolls through the time stamps. Seven seconds, four seconds, fifteen seconds, ten seconds.  _ Twenty-six hours.  _ Back to the first weird number. Now the difference between these two strange numbers is about seven minutes. Far, far too long to be the work of the synthetic minds in the sentries. This is some _ one.  _ A person went through and changed these numbers. 

Keith is the one in charge of taking down this data. He hasn’t turned any of this over to anyone else. Who went in and changed it? Were the numbers not right when the sentries took down the stock numbers? Why change them? It was normal for some of the numbers to be off. All it took was a couple soldiers playing fast and loose with their inventory when they were in a hurry and the numbers wouldn’t match. It normally wasn’t that big of a deal. That’s why Keith was doing this in the first place, to see which numbers didn’t match, share the results with Vikit, and have a stock team double check and update the computer as needed.

Changing the numbers to match before Keith has had a chance to share results and fix it himself makes the fur raise on the back of his neck. It’s changed because someone is hiding something. Someone has access to his files. Keith hisses at the realization and reaches down, fingering around the tiny datachip he has tucked into a slot in the side of the console. Even though he tugs it out and tucks it back into his sleeve, if someone’s already gotten into his files, then it doesn’t matter. If someone’s been in this console and knows that he’s been leeching private data out of this office network, he’s done for.

Keith sits back in his seat and stares, unblinking at the screen. His whole body feels too cold. This is even worse than hearing Sendak’s been promoted out from under him. That could be bad for Keith. Or it could not be. It’s classified. He doesn’t know and thus it could be just about anything. But this, there was something going on here that someone was trying to keep a secret from him. And this is an assignment Keith has been given alone. If someone’s changed his personal files without his knowledge, it would be all too easy for them to pin this on Keith. It would be treason. There’s not a trial for treason. Only a death sentence. 

He closes his eyes and forces himself to take a slow, deep breath. Calm. Think this through. Think of why you’re here, he tells himself. What can he do now? He can look into this further. Go to the vaults, count everything himself. Take notes. Make a copy of these files here. Store them somewhere and point out all the inconsistencies. Tell nobody in this office. Should he get advice from Thace and Ulaz? Probably, considering how cold his hands feel right now. He’s getting close to panicking and the entire reason they’re all in contact with each other is to keep anyone from getting overwhelmed by the pressure.

Think! Who could this be? There only two people who know that he’s taking inventory in these specific vaults. Shiro knows only by virtue of constantly being with him. But Shiro doesn’t know what’s in the vaults. Even if he did have access to this data, he can’t read Galra script anyways. He would have no reason to do any of this and the thought of Shiro going in and changing his personal files despite being directly with Keith is so absurd Keith feels confident that he can toss Shiro out a suspect right off the bat. 

The only other person who knows what Keith has been working on is Vikit. Vikit assigned him to these vaults, but then if he’s keeping a secret, then why hand that power over to Keith in the first place?

But Vikit had been the one to insist on using sentries to take down the count. When Keith had gotten bored enough to say he would go down and count himself, Vikit had only pressed harder to keep using the sentries. Keith hasn’t actually stepped foot in these vaults yet, and even though he’s been looking over this same data for a couple days now, he’s only just now noticed the discrepancies. Was whoever changed these numbers counting on him not to notice?

“Diada, you two are being noisy, go back to the office,” a thick voice growls. Keith looks up from his screen to see Vikit looming over the two slaves. Diada grumbles and stands, shuffling off towards the other side of the room. Shiro goes quiet but, to Keith’s relief, he doesn’t shrink away from Vikit’s firm stare as he sneaks back into Keith’s office before Vikit fills the doorway entirely. Shiro seems to notice Keith’s anxiousness immediately because his eyebrows lift high and he lingers a bit closer than he normally would, nearly coming up right next to his chair. 

“You alright, Keith?” he asks. Vikit grumbles in the doorway, gives Keith a hard, lingering stare. As if he’s trying to read him. Keith swallows thickly. 

“Yes, Keith,” Vikit says. “How are those counts coming along?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm quiddid at both tumblr and twitter. Drop by if you like!


	5. 4.5: Conversations in the Sidelines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So to add insult onto the cliffhanger from chapter 4, here's a side chapter before I move on with the plot! The thulaz scene is something that I didn't think would fit into chapter 4 anywhere without being completely jarring, but still wanted to keep in here somewhere because I think what they're talking about is important enough to be considered required reading. It's big hints for some things that are going to happen in part 2, you know. 
> 
> The sheith scene is a big bit of worldbuilding that I've been flipping around over ever since I started this fic but it's complex and history heavy enough that I just couldn't find out how to work it into the main story without it being a really ugly infodump like it is here. Please bear with me. 
> 
> Both of these scenes take place in the few days gap in chapter 4.

Thace very much likes these quiet, domestic evenings, when the apartment still smells faintly of their dinner and the dishwasher humming was the only sound in the room. Where he was sitting at the dining room table he could see Ulaz on the couch reading a book. Thace clicks his nails on the table with one hand and uses the other to scroll through the contacts in his email. 

He’d told Keith he would look into Sendak for him, but that didn’t really mean he wanted to. He scrolls more, finds the S names and sure enough, there’s Sendak’s entry. Thace hadn’t thought about him in awhile. Not since even before Sendak had been shipped off to his current post alongside Keith, where he still was right now, seventy light years away. Even then, Thace had had a firm rule of ‘Don’t talk to me,’ for...what? It had to be close to four years now. Longer than he’d been with Ulaz. Sendak being so far away only made it easier to forget about him. 

Thace taps Sendak’s name and pulls up a blank email. He knows what he has to do. Play like he’s heard the rumors of Sendak’s promotion. Act like he’s interested. Thace sighs to himself. Probably butter him up a little and see if Sendak can be persuaded into bragging about the circumstances. Even though he has a game plan, he wonders over the slight edge of anxiety in his chest. He hasn’t talked to Sendak beyond anything that was strictly business in years. What could he say that was convincing? He tapped his nails a little more. It was a little hard trying to come up with something believable when he was the one who had broken things off so sharply. What excuse could he have for breaking his own no contact rule?

He didn’t doubt that Sendak would absolutely love to any attention at all from whom he had, in the past, jokingly called his ‘trophy mate’. If Thace had had his own way, he would have waited a good while before trying to bring any of this up. But if there was something going on, time wasn’t exactly on his side here. Sendak was boorish, but he was by no means stupid. At the very least Thace expected him to figure out the suddenly rekindled interest in him would be from gossiping with Keith. It was just a question of how suspicious he would be. 

“I do not think you should talk to Sendak,” Ulaz says suddenly, just as Thace is setting his fingers to the keyboard and typing out the first few words. Thace looks up and finds Ulaz still staring into his book, but the corner of his mouth is turned down into a frustrated grimace. Thace watches him for a few seconds, then turns back to his writing. 

“Who knows? Maybe it’ll be nice to catch up with him,” Thace says. He plays like he’s not paying a ton of attention to Ulaz as he writes. But he hears the rough, surprised sound Ulaz makes and sees him putting his book to the side. Then he feels, more than sees, Ulaz’s steady gaze. 

“You don’t mean that,” Ulaz huffs softly. The corner of Thace’s mouth twitches as he fights back a smile. He’s already distracted halfway through asking Sendak if he’s been doing well lately and paying more attention to Ulaz. It’s more fun getting a rise out of him then playing like he’s interested in playing nice with Sendak. 

“I might,” Thace gently threatens. “I was with him...what? Five? Six years? Still a bit longer than I’ve been with you.” Ulaz growls, a barely audible sound as he stands from the couch and wanders over to the table. Thace can tell just by the wrinkle in Ulaz’s brow that he’s jealous. 

“He’s such….” Ulaz sighs, motioning uselessly to the email Thace has turned back to. 

“A jerk? A bully? A stupid alpha?” Thace offers for him. “Believe me, I know better than you do but,” he pauses again, squinting at his words. He’s not really reading them. Instead he’s thinking about all those times when Sendak would do or say one of the myriad of things that really grated on his nerves. Like calling him a trophy. Or speaking for him instead of letting Thace speak for himself. Or insisting he dress a certain way or speak a certain way. Always wanting Thace to be something he simply wasn’t. 

“What if he thinks you really mean it?” Ulaz growls lowly. He reaches for the pad and tries to turn it towards him, but Thace slaps his hand over it before Ulaz can read what he’s written. He’s not allowed to pry that deeply and get himself worked up over the details. Thace knows Ulaz well enough to see how Ulaz will obsess of the words and what they could mean. 

“I’m kind of hoping that he does,” Thace hums softly. He pulls the pad back to his chest and turns it off. He’ll finish it later. “It wouldn’t do a lot of good if he immediately figures out what I’m up to and doesn’t tell me anything.” 

“And knowing our luck, you will get him thinking you’re interested again just as he gets orders to come back to the main fleet,” Ulaz huffs. He gives up on the pad and instead scratches his claws over the tabletop, a twitch in his fingers Thace recognizes as a nervous gesture. Sendak makes him that anxious? “He’ll be all over you.” 

Thace’s expression softens even though he knows what Ulaz is imagining isn’t too many degrees off of potential reality. Thace wouldn’t be too surprised to see Sendak just helping himself to anything Thace lets him think is his. “He wouldn’t dare with you around,” Thace says softly and reaches out for Ulaz’s hand, tangling his fingers in the other Galra’s and gently stilling them. 

“It’s not stopped him before,” Ulaz points out. “Before- It didn’t matter who was there. He just liked to show off.” Thace squeezes his hand harder, brushes his thumb over the backs of Ulaz’s knuckles. Thace doesn’t have to ask what he’s talking about. He knows it already. It’s all the times Sendak would creep up on Thace in public, make stupid little passes at him and shows off affection just on the edge of inappropriate. Sendak had taken special joy in showing Ulaz who Thace belonged to simply because Ulaz could never bring himself to brush it off and pretend that he didn’t care. 

“Before, he thought you were merely a nosy friend,” Thace purrs. “Now he knows you’re my mate, and he’s not so stupid as to try and step between us,” he grins, shows Ulaz a flash of his canines. “He knows not to cross me anymore.” Ulaz chuckles lowly and the sound still has the power to make Thace’s chest flutter. It always reminds him of when they met. Of cold and darkness and flurries of snow. Of sneaking out from under Kolivan’s nose only to have Ulaz point and laugh at him for his boldness. 

“I love you,” Ulaz rumbles softly. “I love that about you. I forgot you have Sendak half-scared.” Thace shakes their hands apart and stands so he can circle around the back of Ulaz’s chair. He loops his arms over Ulaz’s shoulders and rests his cheek on top of his head, purring thickly as he rubs back and forth, mixing their already inseparable scents a little more. Sendak never got this show of affection out of him, but he doubts Ulaz knows that. 

“I have to do this,” Thace hums when he’s finished and Ulaz settles comfortably under his chin. “I’m worried that he really would try to do something about Keith if he thought he was getting in the way, and if I can get it out of him what’s he’s up to, then I really shouldn’t ignore it because of past flings.” Ulaz sighs.

“I know,” he says and reaches up for one of Thace’s hands where they hang at his chest. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help but get jealous thinking of you talking to him again.” Thace kisses the top of his head, on one of the cream colored markings. “I trust you,” and then after a pause; “You’re very sneaky.” 

Thace thumps him in the chest with his free hand. “It almost weird hearing  _ you _ tell someone to be careful,” he teases. Ulaz grumbles. 

“You don’t understand.  _ I’m  _ allowed to do whatever I think is necessary.  _ You  _ have to be careful,” Ulaz insists. He holds onto Thace’s hand a little when Thace makes to pull away, but ultimately lets him go without a fight. Thace settles back in at the table and turns the datapad back on to resume his email. 

“That attitude is exactly why you’re going to give our dear Leader a heart attack someday.”

* * *

 

Every morning, Keith takes a pill. It’s a little blue pill that Keith keeps in a bottle in a kitchen drawer just next to the sink. The same drawer he keeps things like scraps of paper and stray pens. Not only does he take it every morning, but he takes at the same time. Every single morning, just about ten minutes after the morning wake up call. No matter if he were going to work, if it’s his day off or anything. If they left the house early to go to the gym, Keith would cut things off and come home just in time to take his pill. 

“What is that?” Shiro asks, squinting as Keith taps another one of those tiny pills into the palm of his hand and pops it into his mouth. Keith pauses, his tongue working over the pill before he swallows it with a sip of water.

“What’s what?” he asks, one ear tipping back. Shiro’s learned it’s a tell for when he’s thinking back on something. He glances at the bottle still sitting on the counter. “The pill?”

“Are you okay?” Shiro asks. He reaches for the bottle, and Keith lets him, probably because he remembers Shiro can’t read the label anyways before Shiro does himself. “Do you have a condition? Should I be looking out for anything?” He presses. The now familiar tug of his binding shifts around in the back of his mind. What if Keith has had a heart condition this entire time? What if he’s prone to fainting? Or dying? What happens to him if the person he’s bound too keels over suddenly?

Keith chuckles. “If you consider being an omega a health condition, then yeah, I guess so,” he plucks the bottle from Shiro’s hand and tucks it into the drawer where it belongs. “It’s not anything you have to worry about. I’m not going to just fall out and start bleeding out of my ears or something. It just...keeps my heats in control.” 

“You keep saying things about alphas and omegas, but you never explained what they were,” Shiro gripes softly. Keith’s ears pops up in genuine surprise as he leans on the counter. “I don’t know what that means.” Keith is quiet for a couple seconds, thinking, then he straightens up and moves over towards the couch.

“That’s only because explaining it to you would take a whole history lesson,” Keith says. Shiro follows him into the living room and settles on the couch with him, watching as Keith sinks in and makes himself comfortable. “It doesn’t effect you that much, so on one hand I didn’t think you would care and on the other it’s not terribly interesting. It’s just a part of life.” 

“But it changes how people treat you sometimes,” Shiro points out. “Vikit...he seems to look down on you a little. And you’ve told me alphas are just being stupid more than once.” Keith frowns. 

“It really shouldn’t though,” he sighs. “It’s not a big deal, especially with my suppressants,” Keith says, motioning towards the kitchen, where he’d left the pills. Shiro ponders over the word ‘suppressant’ and the fact that Keith apparently goes through heats.

“It’s birth control?” he asks. If Keith could blush under his fur, Shiro’s sure he would be, considering how his eyes turn away and his ears pull back a little, tense. 

“Yeah,” he huffs, the turns a frown on Shiro. “Now shut up. Do you want me to explain everything to you or do you want to ask fifty thousand questions?” Shiro snaps his jaw shut and sits up straighter, interested. 

“No, I’ll be quiet, I wanna hear,” then, before he can stop himself. “Are alphas and omegas just something that the Galra naturally ha-” 

“Shut  _ up, _ ” Keith hisses. “You really are a scientist, aren’t you?” 

“I’ve always been very interested in aliens,” Shiro admits, then really does shut his mouth when Keith looks like he’s about to very quickly close the gap between his claws and Shiro’s throat. 

“Don’t open your mouth again or I’m not telling you anything,” Keith warns. When Shiro really is quiet despite him brimming with questions, Keith settles against the arm of the couch. 

“Okay so, to answer your question. No. The Galra didn’t start out with alphas and omegas, and they didn’t develop naturally. They come from the same place bound slaves come from: the druids,” he says. 

“The Galra empire is really old. Like more than ten thousand years old. But it wasn’t always so big.” 

“Of course,” Shiro adds in. “I can’t imagine everyone would just roll over and let the Galra take over so much of the universe.” 

“No, of course not,” Keith sighs, unamused that Shiro’s already broken his promise to listen without interruption. “It’s only gotten this big in the past couple thousand years. Before that we were just getting a foothold and figuring out how to run an empire that spans so much...space. No one has exactly done this before.”

“So you know how it goes,” Keith says and starts counting off on his fingers. “You have to have lots of ships. You have to have a lot of people running supplies. You have to have lots of soldiers. But the universe is near infinite, as far as we can tell, and one civilization can go so far on its own. We managed to make good progress in the first several thousand years, but after we went past a certain distance, we hit a wall.” 

“No one wants to be conquered, and not everyone wants to be part of the Galra empire. So fights break out and soldiers die all the time in battle. The further we go, the more resources we need, so as we move on, more and more people are left behind to gather those resources and make trade routes. We need more ships as we expand, so we have to cut down on the number of crew members in each one more and more.” 

“The Galra were getting spread thin?” Shiro asks. Keith nods. 

“Around five thousand years ago we managed to create an AI advanced enough to put in the sentries. Those robots you see around everywhere. They were created to lessen the workload, because at that point apparently everyone was so overworked even those in less strenuous careers were starting to die from it. Before that we were already using….prisoners,” he pauses a little, almost motions to Shiro. “To deal with some of it, but there’s too many things that need to be done that prisoners simply can’t be trusted with.” 

“And the sentries worked for awhile, but with them taking more and more of the safer jobs, that only left more deadly options for the Galra. So in the end they only made things worse and eventually between being so far apart from each other and just dying on the job, the Galra population was dropping really quickly.” Keith shrugs. “Galra tend to have a lot more male children to begin with, so there really weren’t that many women to manage any kind of solution.” 

Keith notes the frown forming on Shiro’s face, but continues on nonetheless. “So the druids stepped in. At first they tried to increase the odds of producing female children, but they couldn’t get it to work. It just made everyone they worked with...sterile.” Shiro’s brow furrows. He’s starting to put it together ahead of Keith.

“So… they made omegas?” he asks. Keith nods.

“I’m not a druid. So I don’t know the science behind it but for some reason it was easier for them to manage to make males that could bear children than it was for them to increase the number of females.” Shiro’s brows raise in surprise so sharply Keith can’t help but smile at his expression. 

“You can-?” Shiro asks. He looks like he’s just been told that Keith’s fur has been green this entire time. “How?” 

“I’m not giving you a biology lesson too,” Keith says sharply. “It’s not magic. Just the same junk in a different package.” Shiro still sits there quietly for several seconds, no doubt putting the little pieces he’s been gathering over the past couple of weeks together in his head. 

“So what about alphas?” Shiro adds. 

“Well, omegas were, at the time, pretty unnatural. No one wanted to well… use them. So the druids had to make a ‘male’,” Keith says, twitching his fingers, “counterpart for them. Someone who would be more interested in omegas than any other kind of partner. That’s why they’re so stupid. They’re just big and aggressive and all they think about is sex.” 

“Is that why you’re so small? Because you’re an omega?” Shiro asks. Keith’s ears pull back tight and quickly goes quiet again. 

“No. That’s just because I’m a half-breed,” Keith says quietly. He can see the question in Shiro’s eyes before he even has a chance to say anything. “Don’t bother asking what the other half is. I don’t know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to even pretend this is completely neat. Just shh. I know. 
> 
> You can find me @quiddid on both tumblr and twitter!


	6. Putting the Pieces Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there's only a couple chapters left of this storyline and I'm really excited that I'm finally in sight of some kind of milestone in this fic, even though it's already more than 30k by now. But oh my god there's so much more that I'm even more ready to get to.

“How are those counts coming along?” Vikit’s voice, deep and aggressive, prickles over Shiro’s skin. He can tell Keith is nervous; he’s been sensing that he’s been getting steadily moreso over the past several minutes. To Shiro it feels like a static over the back of his neck and into his chest, making his heart beat a little too fast. 

“Well enough, I’ve only got a few confirmations to write up. I should have it to you within a couple days,” Keith’s voice is smooth even though it carries the same edge of aggression he always seems to have towards Vikit. Shiro’s  _ convinced  _ his binding is giving him hints to Keith’s distress, but without it, he would never know. When he pulls his eyes off the hulking Galra in front of him and glances to Keith, he seems perfectly fine sitting at his desk. Vikit opens his mouth to add something, but Keith cuts him off. 

“Yeah, I’m just killing time mostly because I still haven’t gotten a new assignment, but I’ve also been thinking about that smaller flight you told me to set aside supplies for. You know, since you never did clue me in on that,” Keith says. Vikit’s shoulders stiffen, then he lets out a deep, growling breath. 

“Don’t waste my time, Keith,” he responds. Keith seems to have cut off some of his sour mood, redirected it somewhere else. Shiro still shuffles back a couple steps closer to Keith. Vikit’s eyes shift between them. “I still don’t know anymore than I did before about that. They’re thinking about something.” 

“Or something’s going on still? You think it’s a response to something?” Keith asks. Vikit rumbles deeply. 

“Probably. I don’t know what though. There’s always something going on,” Vikit stiffens, seems to realize he’s gotten a little distracted. “Anyways. Just finish up those counts as soon as you can. I’ll expect you to send them to me at the end of the week at the latest. I need them.” 

“No problem,” Keith hums. Shiro thinks it’s over when Vikit steps back towards the door, but then the Galra narrows his eyes on him. 

“And you,” Vikit says. Shiro nearly bumps into Keith getting close to him and he feels the smaller Galra set a hand on his side and push him off a little. “Quit being so damn jumpy whenever someone tries to talk to your master. Makes me think you’re up to something.” Shiro opens his mouth, but Keith curls his fingers, pricking him through the thin fabric of his tunic with his claws. “I’m his boss, not a terrorist. You’re worse than a pent-up yupper.” 

“He’s better than he was,” Keith hums, he opens his hand again, slides it up Shiro’s flank. Goosebumps raise on Shiro’s skin under his touch, but he doesn’t pull away, thinking Keith is trying to make a show that he’s somehow tame. 

“I don’t believe that. Whoever thought gladiators would ever be manageable slaves obviously never had to deal with one,” Vikit sighs. “End of the week,” he reminds, then moves out of the office, letting the door slide shut behind him. Shiro waits until he sees Vikit cross the office towards where Diada is lingering in front of his door before he turns back to Keith when the Galra drops his hand from his side. 

Keith has slumped back in his chair, his ears drooping a little in apparent exhaustion. He’s not  _ quite  _ so nervous as before, but that tension is still tugging around lightly in Shiro’s chest. Maybe the conversation had broken whatever spring he’d been winding up in himself. 

“What’s wrong?” Shiro asks. Keith shrugs, but as he sits up again and turns back to his console. He taps something and Shiro sees a bar start filling horizontally across the screen. It reminds him of downloading something at home. Is it the same thing here?

“There’s nothing wrong Shiro, quit fussing over me,” Keith sighs. He sees Shiro watching what he’s doing and pauses, then decides it’s nothing he has to worry too much about. Probably remembered Shiro still only had the most basic grasp of the Galra language. “I just don’t like him getting on my back is all.” 

“I was starting to worry you were going to freak out when he came in though. Do you have some kind of problem with him that I don’t know about?” he asks. Maybe they had a past? Maybe… Keith was hiding something? “What are you doing?”

Keith bristles. “I’m doing  _ nothing.  _ Nothing. I’m just working. What’s your deal? Don’t you get nervous when people come after you?” Shiro hums, watches Keith tap at the console a bit too roughly. 

“What’s that?” Shiro asks, points at the bar as it fills completely and disappears. Keith reaches for something in the front of his desk. What he pulls out looks something like a microSD card. Keith tucks it under his sleeve at his wrist. 

“Making a backup up my work. I’m almost done, and Vikit  _ just  _ gave me a deadline. It would make sense to keep an extra copy around, right?”

* * *

 

It’s dark when Keith wakes him up. But by now, after Keith has come and woken him up in the middle of the night a few times, the anxiousness only lasts for a couple seconds before his brain catches up with the knee jerk instinct to lash out he’d developed from his months imprisoned. 

“Were you awake?” Keith asks. Shiro realizes he’s not even grabbed at Keith this time, only a handful of the sheets. He blinks, but Keith remains a near shapeless form in the dim light. When Shiro doesn’t answer, Keith continues on for him. “Well, come on. I have some work to do and I’m not going to have any time for it during the day.”

Shiro sighs, lets go of the sheets and sits up. “We’re not going to the gym?” he asks. That’s usually the only thing Keith will want while Shiro’s still sleeping. Keith shifts, then chuckles. 

“This late at night? No. I actually have work, so when we come back I’m going to sleep,” Keith says. Shiro sits there for a few seconds, thinking what in God’s name he could possibly have to do in the middle of the night. 

“You told Vikit you were almost done yesterday. Is that it?” he asks. It’s the least ominous thing he can think off. This place is full of sentries and hyper-militarized, going out this late feels strange to him. Keith hums. Claw tipped fingers circle gently around his arm, right where flesh meets his prosthetic, and tugs him lightly. 

“I lied. If I go and do these counts while I’m at work, he’ll know and I’ll get an earful that will give you a fit,” Keith says. 

“I can control myself,” Shiro insists. He’s not totally sure of that, even though he argues it. Sometimes he doesn’t realize he’s gotten too close to Keith until the Galra is trying to push him off. 

“Yeah…I’ll believe that when I actually see it,” Keith hums. He turns and Shiro listens to him walk into the living room. He flicks the overhead light on and Shiro squints against the brightness. “Get dressed. I want to get this over with.” 

The work turns out to be in what looks like a warehouse. Keith had led him to an elevator and they had gone down several floors to a hallway lined with those huge doors he often sees on storage containers. Even though the place is guarded more heavily with sentries than other places of the ship, Keith doesn’t seem bothered in the least, and Shiro does his best to follow suit, even though the robots tip their heads as they pass, clearly watching them. 

About halfway down the hall, Keith motions for one of the sentries to press its hand to a console and the door shudders open. Shiro feels the vibration in the floor, but the whole thing is remarkably silent. When the sentry tries to follow them in, Keith motions for it to stay outside, to which its response is an oddly emotional “Are you certain?” that gives Shiro a vague sense of the uncanny valley. The door shuts them in and the lights flick on. Keith shoves a piece of paper and a pen into his hands. 

“Follow me,” Keith says and heads to the back of massive room. Shiro follows, only half paying attention because he’s more interested in the things Keith’s just handed him. The pen is more like a fat sharpie or a permanent marker, which Shiro isn’t terribly surprised by considering that all things need to be scaled up a bit, since most Galra are nearly two feet taller than Keith. But he kind of wonders over the nib, because it’s just as thick and unwieldy as the rest of it. Perhaps because all the Galra letters he’s seen were blocky looking? Perhaps it’s easier to mark them out with something like this. Whatever the reason, it’s something he can get over, because the paper is something that bothers him even more. He’s calling it paper because it’s square, white, and barely thicker than a sheet of paper on Earth, but it’s stiff as a strong piece of plastic. He shakes it in front of himself as he follows Keith and it doesn’t even bend or flap at all. It has a texture, of all things, like sandpaper.

He can kind of understand the stiffness; it eliminates the need for a clip board, but if anyone ever wanted to fold it for a letter or something, he supposes they would be out of luck. Actually… Keith still isn’t looking at him, so he takes one end of the paper in each hand and tries to bend it. It doesn't’ give. He doesn’t know what he would have done if it had. 

“Okay, I need you to help me with this because I don’t want to be here all night,” Keith says, coming to a stop in front of a red crate. “But I still need you to be accurate about this. Count these,” he sets his hand on the red crate. “There  _ should  _ be fifty, but if there’s not, then don’t worry about it.” Shiro writes down the word ‘red’ on the strange piece of paper. Between trying to hold it and using such a thick pen, the letters come out somewhat large and awkward. But that doesn’t mean anything, because the text shifts into Galra script as soon as he pauses his writing and he can’t read it anymore anyways. He notes a hyphen and then ‘50’ beside it. The only thing that remains is, oddly enough, the hyphen. Looks like he’ll be keeping mental notes, and marking down the numbers entirely in hyphens then. 

Keith continues on, touches a green crate with yellow bands around it. “There should be thirty of these,” then a white crate with a black triangle on the side. “And...three of these. Forget it. I can already see there’s only two.” Keith sighs. Shiro frowns at Keith’s clear uncomfort showing in the way he pulls his ears back and the little wrinkle in his brow. Shiro watches as Keith taps his nails on the side of the white crate, takes a slow, deep breath. “Just start with those and find me when you’re finished. We still have a few more in a couple other vaults to go through,” Keith says, and before Shiro can ask him if he’s okay, Keith disappears behind another row of crates. 

So, Shiro keeps his notes in his head and counts along, making a mark on his paper with every one. If he had his way, he would have used roman numerals, but the paper likes to change a vertical mark into some kind of upside down T with an umlaut shape he can’t understand at all. So at the end he has a very messy and hard to decipher line of hyphens and really, what’s even the point of using this thing if it makes him feel like a neanderthal just now realizing charcoal leaves marks on the wall. All he can do is try to keep some kind of record for whatever Keith is doing and remember the numbers in his head: forty-seven red and twenty-nine green, even when he counts them over three times. 

A slight worry tugs at the back of his mind. He knows that Keith is supposed to be taking stock of these, but some of the things are short. Is that a bigger deal than Keith is letting on? Is this why he’s been so shifty lately?

“Shiro?” Keith calls maybe twenty minutes later as he shows up again, this time from the opposite direction. “Are you finished yet?” Shiro hums that he is, but he doesn’t offer the paper to Keith when he holds his hand out for it, feeling slightly self-conscious over the messy formatting. 

“You’re three short for the red ones, but only one short with the green,” Shiro says. Keith frowns, again that edge of worry showing around his eyes, but he also doesn’t seem terribly surprised. 

“I hope you wrote it down,” Keith says. He motions for the papers and, with a sigh, Shiro hands it over. Keith flips it, looks, and something like a strangled squeak catches in his throat. He hitches and covers his mouth, and Shiro feels his face heat realizing he’s trying not to laugh. “What the hell is this?”

“By Earth standards, I’m perfectly literate,” Shiro growls. He grips the awkwardly sized pen in his fist. “I would even say that I’m pretty smart, but I don’t know how  _ that  _ thing works at all. Everything I wrote on it turned into Galra letters.” 

“Oh, quiznak, Shiro, this is  _ garbage _ ,” Keith wheezes. Then it finally gets the better of him and he breaks out into laughter, quiet but genuine in a way that he has trouble catching his breath. For a few seconds, Shiro feels the nagging sensation of Keith’s anxiety smooth out. 

They go through the same with the other two storage units Keith has counts to make in and within an hour, they’re headed home. But Keith’s earlier mirth has been once again replaced with nerves because, between the two of them, every single one of their counts had been short. Not by a lot. Everything had fewer than five units missing, but things were still missing nonetheless and Shiro can tell this bothers Keith deeply, even if he doesn’t have the context to understand what that means for him. He doesn’t think it’s too far-fetched to believe that Keith could get reprimanded for it, but thinking of how seriously the Galra take everything, Shiro’s own worries start to rise thinking that the consequences might be quite a bit more dire for Keith if he can’t sort this out. 

By now it’s late enough at night that the few Galra that are out in the hallways are clearly support staff and not any kind of soldier. No one pays either of them any mind as they pass through until they enter the wing containing some of the personal quarters, where they find someone who clearly stands out, standing the middle of the hallway several doors down from Keith’s apartment. When he hears their footsteps he glances up at them, his face betraying a hint of surprise before it settles into an open friendliness that Shiro doesn’t think is often found at this time of night. 

“You found me out,” he says. He doesn’t move as Keith approaches him at a stiff walk, his ears pushed as far forward as he can get them. Shiro follows Keith closely, eyeing up the newcomer. Tall, of course, like all Galra. He has strong shoulders, but seems to carry it well with a movement that’s more graceful than bulky. Dark hair that he keeps down to his shoulders, though the left side parts a bit oddly and it takes Shiro a second of inspecting it to realize he’s probably covering up an old scar. The strong brow and jaw strike Shiro as slightly familiar but he can’t quite place how. 

“What are you doing here?” Keith asks, stopping just out of arm’s reach. The Galra looks between them, a sheepish smile pulling at his lips. He motions with something in his hand and laughs lightly when Shiro flinches. 

“Right now or…in general?” he asks. He shows what he has in his hand. It’s a small box striped with purple and red with some bright yellow text across the front. To Shiro it means nothing, but Keith relaxes with a soft huff. 

“Really? Fruit crackers?” Keith asks. “Who even eats those?” The Galra deflates a little, palms the box again. 

“I got a taste for them as a kitten, okay? Civilians don’t have access to these, so while I’m visiting dad, I have to get them where I can. He knew I was coming too and forgot to get me some,” the Galra explains. The word ‘civilian’ piques Shiro’s interest enough to take note of his clothes, curious as to what casual would look like to Galra. He’s wearing dark blue slacks of a looser fit than Keith’s suit he wears to work. His jacket, gray, with accents of the same blue in his slacks, is comfy looking and overlaps heavily a the chest, fastened with a gold zipper. What catches his attention most is the orange sash he has tied around his waist. 

“So you...stole some,” Keith hums. “The commissary is closed this time of night.”

“Don’t say that out in the middle of the hallway! I left money on the counter,” the Galra hisses. Shiro stares, because when the Galra frowns, he looks  _ very  _ familiar and it’s nagging at him. 

“Who’s your dad?” he asks. Keith glances first at him, then to the other Galra like he agrees that it’s a good question. He grips the box of crackers, turns his head down at Shiro and gives him a kind smile.

“Who are you?” he asks softly. It’s not unkind, but his tone is ill matched to the look in his eyes and it gives Shiro a weird twist in his stomach. 

“Commander Keith,” Keith speaks up for him. “This is my bonded slave, Shiro. I haven’t had him for too long,” Keith adds. The Galra hums, and his expression becomes more genuine. 

“Sorry, I didn’t realize I was talking to one of my father’s peers. My name is Osin,” he crosses his left arm over his chest and taps his right collarbone with his fingers before he bows slightly. “I’m Commander Vikit’s younger son. Do you know him?” Shiro nearly opens his mouth with a friendly confirmation that they do, in fact, know a Vikit. But Keith’s anxiety is now a familiar tug at his binding and he  _ knows  _ there’s a connection here somewhere, without Keith having to say a word or even show any outward hints that he’s nervous. 

So he says nothing. 

“I can’t say I know him well, but I’ve seen him around from time to time,” Keith sighs, keeps the papers he and Shiro had been using to keep their counts in the storage units tight against his side. “Listen, I won’t tell anyone about your...tastes. I don’t care. I’m just ready to go home so, it’s been nice to meet you,” Keith says. Osin hums, motions to the papers Keith’s carrying. 

“And I’m supposed to believe you’re not up to anything clandestine out here in the middle of the night?” Osin asks. Keith’s ear flicks irritably. 

“Not besides just trying to go back to bed,” Keith says. Osin grins, and when he tries to takes a step closer Shiro’s heart lurches and he rushes between them. All he can think about for a couple seconds is Osin snatching the papers out of Keith’s grip, or worse yet, trying to grab for Keith himself. Osin straightens up and backs away again. 

“Okay yeah, bound. Sorry, I forgot,” Osin says, lifting his hands in submission. “You’re worse to move around than Diada though.” Keith huffs, grabs Shiro by the elbow and gently tugs him along. 

“It was nice meeting you. Good night,” Keith says and now he has a sense of finality in his voice that says he’s not going to be dragged into Osin’s attempts to keep the conversation going. Osin says nothing back, and watches them as they move down the hall and into Keith’s room. 

As soon as the door shuts behind them Keith lets out a long breath and releases Shiro’s arm. He heads to the bedroom and Shiro follows closely, watching as Keith opens up his closet with the papers still in his hands. 

“What was that all about?” Shiro asks. He stands in the doorway of the closet and sees Keith pull open a drawer. He pulls out a couple shirts, stuffs the papers in and covers them up again. Now why would he need to hide them? “Who was that guy, and why was he making you so nervous?”

“I’m not nervous, Shiro. I’m just tired, and he seemed like the type to talk for hours if I would let him,” Keith says. He glances at Shiro, sees that he’s seen him hide the papers, and Keith slides the drawer shut with a firm thud. “It’s just safe keeping.”

* * *

 

“So, what’s going on that you had to lock Shiro in your office?” Thace asks. His voice carries equal parts concern and amusement as he settles on Keith’s couch next to Ulaz. He looks towards said office door, thinking it’s almost unnaturally quiet considering. Getting Shiro in there long enough for Keith to lock the door on him had been a hard test of Keith’s ability to be persuasive. Telling him it was a private meeting wasn’t enough to convince the human he really wasn’t allowed to be even a guest. Telling him that he would be filled in on whatever they could offer later on had just been barely enough. 

“You know he’s listening anyways, Keith,” Ulaz says at Thace’s shoulder. Keith shrugs, straightens a pile of papers between his hands as he sits on the edge of the coffee table. “That’s why he’s being so quiet.”

“He doesn’t know it, but that office door is soundproofed,” Keith hums. He probably knows better than anyone how much excluding Shiro from information like this so baldly is aching the human, but he doesn’t care. “That’s where I take calls from Kolivan. He can’t hear anything,” Keith holds the stack of papers out to the two other Galra and they start separating it out between them. “Now, let’s get this over with. I’ve never been able to lock the door on him before and I don’t know how much that will wear at his binding.” Thace squints at a readout of hundreds of columns, about thirty of which have been highlighted in red. 

“I assume this isn’t about Sendak then?” Thace asks. “Because this certainly looks a little more intensive than that.” Keith deflates a little, cursing under his breath.

“I already forgot about him,” Keith admits. Ulaz hums. 

“He hasn’t given up anything; he’s still too lovesick over the fact that Thace is even talking to him at all.” Ulaz answers. Thace gives him a short look, but still nods in agreement. Then Ulaz adds. “He’s trying to be romantic.” 

“I don’t have anything  _ useful  _ yet.” Thace cuts in. “He’s told me he’s been promoted for something pretty big, but he hasn’t given me a hint as to what,” Keith just looks tired. 

“Do you mind to keep trying?” he asks. Thace shrugs, showing he doesn’t care in the least. “These though,” Keith motions to the readout Thace has, and Keith’s own handwritten notes in Ulaz’s hands. “The standby office has given me the assignment of taking stocks out of a few vaults. I’ve been trying to drag my feet about it the past few days because I’ve found discrepancies.” Both of the other Galra perk up, though neither say anything so Keith can say his piece.

“At first glance, all the numbers on that readout are perfectly fine, but when you look at the dates the numbers were taken down, all the highlighted ones were put in about a day or so later,” Keith says. He stands, points to one column that Thace is holding, then finds the corresponding note on the papers in Ulaz’s hands. 

“The day before yesterday I went down to the vaults after curfew and counted the things I highlighted and as I thought, they’re all off. Not by a lot, but  _ all  _ of them are short,” Keith says. 

“Someone’s skimming then?” Ulaz asks, glances over Keith’s notes. “All of these things are...strange. Ammunition, fuel, large engine parts…” Thace frowns. 

“I could understand it as someone just being greedy and trying to keep a little to themselves for resale, but most of these things don’t have a very high value outside of the military,” Thace says. Keith nods; their thinking is much along the same as their own. Thace looks to Keith. “Do you have a hunch? You’ve been gathering a lot of information on your own.” 

“Of course I have. At the very least, it’ll save my ass even if this is someone just not being really smart in the whole skimming thing. But, I think it’s more than that. Commander Vikit is the one who gave me the assignment, and besides Shiro, he’s the only who knows I’m taking inventory on those specific vaults right now.” 

“He’s the only one who would know to go in and change the numbers once you took them down?” Ulaz asks. 

“But not only that,” Keith says, leaning forward and setting his elbows on his knees. “When I went down to the vaults the other day, I ran into someone in the hallway. Vikit’s son, Osin.” There’s a long beat of silence as the other two Galra think. 

“I don’t know an Osin,” Ulaz admits. “I know that Vikit’s oldest, Vesin, works as Prince Lotor’s bodyguard, but he hasn’t been to the main fleet in several years.”

“That’s exactly it though. I didn’t know him either. He’s a civilian. He was out so late because he was stealing damn crackers out of the commissary,” Keith hisses. Thace and Ulaz stare at him and Keith flicks his ear, slightly irritated that they haven’t followed him that far. “Don’t you think that’s weird?”

“A little,” Ulaz admits. “Keith, I can agree with you that Vikit might have something to do with this, seeing as he’s the only person who would know when to change the numbers, but now you’re thinking his son is in on it too?” Thace hums, agreeing with Ulaz. 

“You have proof that something is going on, but none of us know either Vikit or Osin well enough to pin something like skimming on them, much less whatever they’re using these things for. That kind of charge is nearly as bad as outright treason. If it gets back to them that you’re the one who came up with idea, it could turn out very bad for you,” Ulaz says. Keith takes a deep breath and considers. This is exactly why he wanted to bring this up with these two; they were a valuable second opinion. Keith licks his lips as he thinks. 

“I don’t want to do anything that’ll lead someone to looking into me,” Keith says. “But I can’t just let this sit as it is either. If this is found out by someone else and they learn I’ve known about this, I’m just as bad as whoever is actually doing it in their eyes.”

“None of us do,” Thace says. He sighs, leans back into the couch and takes the papers from Ulaz, settling them all together neatly. “So, I think, you have several options. First, you go all the way. You report this, you give them your proof, and you name your suspicions. They’ll want to come and interview you and you’ll probably get the druids involved.” Keith shivers, thinking back to the lower levels the druids had taken him to when he had first bound Shiro to himself. 

“No way,” Keith says. Ulaz smiles, amused. 

“You’ve had training in how to deal with them, you could if you had to,” he says. Keith shakes his head. He  _ could  _ but he’d never  _ choose  _ to. 

“Second, you still give them your proof, and your name, but you tell them you don’t have any idea who would be the culprit. They would still want to look into what you’ve been up to, but if they don’t find anything you might get a reputation for being jumpy, and if they do, your name is still attached to the evidence,” Thace says. Again, Keith frowns, not liking the idea. 

“Or you could scrub this,” Thace says, holding up the stack of papers, “of all your identifications and send it in anonymously. But then you’ll just have to deal with having no idea what’s going to happen after the investigation is in their hands. They might even look into you as a suspect at some point.” Keith sags. 

“I’m not getting away from the druids, am I,” Keith says. Both of them look apologetic. 

“I don’t see a way to promise you they’ll completely leave you alone. It is attached to your office,” Thace says. Ulaz sits up then, looking again towards the closed door. 

“So what about Shiro then?” he asks. All three pairs of eyes slide to the office door, where there’s still been no sound. “I feel like if you’re going to be dragged into an investigation like this, he should know about it. You’ve had training dealing with the druids, but Shiro’s… well, he’s got a past with them.” 

Thace huffs and gives Ulaz a gentle glare. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. The more he knows about anything going on between us,” he says, motioning to the space between the three of them. “The more likely he is to let something slip. We can’t be too careful in our current position, especially now that Keith is having so many problems coming up. Right now is the most dangerous time to tell him anything.”

“It’s just the opposite, Thace, he can’t know what to keep to himself if he’s ignorant of the bigger situation. He’s by no means stupid, he probably already knows something is up, even if Keith hasn’t given him any details himself,” Ulaz presses. Thace’s ears stiffen. 

“The more he knows, the easier it is for the druids to interrogate him.” 

“You haven’t worked with him as I have,” Ulaz says. Keith follows their argument and sighs. They both have good points, but he’ll have to choose on his own, and the only way to know if it’s the right choice is to wait for the consequences.

* * *

 

It doesn’t seem that it’s terribly often that Shiro can pick up on Keith’s emotions through his binding. It’s muddled and faint, like he’s stuck his head underwater, or trying to listen to a conversation going on in the other room. Shiro supposes it’s only something he can pick up on when Keith is feeling something strongly, or maybe it’s purely distress that irritates him like this, because this sense of anxiety that  _ isn’t his  _ has been nagging at him for the past couple of days. This nails on a chalkboard feeling creeping up the back of his neck. The string netted tight around his heart. The thought that what he’s feeling through his binding might be a diluted version of what Keith’s going through is keeping him up at night.

But it’s very quickly becoming his anxiety as well. There’s something lurking around in the bigger picture that’s being kept a secret from him. Keith being nervous every time he’s in the office, especially when Vikit comes to talk to him. The visit to the storage area. Taking down numbers, only for Keith to hide them in his closet. That person they had run into in the hall a few days ago, Osin, still lingers in the back of his mind, like there’s something not  _ quite  _ right with him. Thace and Ulaz coming over, and Keith shutting him into his room/the office with the promise to let him know what’s going on but, when he had been let out again, Keith had been even more on edge than before, and even less willing to give him anything beyond ‘It’s nothing to worry about’. 

Shiro’s worried for himself, of course, because if something happens to Keith, he figures it’s safe to assume the same would go for him. But what? What’s happening? He feels the same way he did as a child, when he would overhear his parents’ arguments when they thought he wasn’t paying attention. How he had felt like little more than a witness when they tried to play like everything was fine. How helpless he had been when they finally, finally sat down with him and said they were splitting up, and knowing that a little part of it had been expecting it all along. 

Shiro lets out a deep breath and kicks the blanket off himself. He feels stupid for having that same sensation now. He’s a slave, but he’s also a man, and even though Keith is technically his master, he can’t be that far off his own age. And wasn’t a bonded slave supposed to be somewhat of a bodyguard anyways? What’s he doing just standing back and keeping himself out of the loop? What has Keith ever done to him to make him fear pushing his own case?

Because, he thinks, as he looks over his shoulder into the living room, he’s worried about Keith as well. Not only in the preserve-his-own-skin kind of way, but in that he’s genuinely concerned over Keith’s state of mind. 

From where he lays in bed, he can see Keith sitting on the couch. He’s not doing anything. He just has something in his lap over his crossed legs, slowly running his fingers back and forth over its surface. Shiro can’t say he’s known Keith for a very long time, but he knows him well enough that this definitely isn’t normal. Shiro rolls over and out of bed, padding into the other room to join him. 

“Oh, that’s...” Shiro says. He’s a few steps away from Keith when he realizes what he’s holding is a familiar looking sword. Long and black, with a bright purple line running along the edge side. At the hilt is a symbol he doesn’t recognize; but Keith is tracing it with the tips of his fingers. He’s only seen this sword once. 

“It’s the sword I stabbed you with,” Keith fills in for him. He taps his fingers along the blade, pulls it to the side enough that Shiro has room to sit beside him. Shiro remains standing.

“Why do you have that right now? Instead of maybe...sleeping?” Shiro asks. He tries to inject a bit of humor in his voice, but Keith doesn’t bite. He doesn’t look so much sad as almost unnaturally calm, still tracing the symbol at the hilt of his sword. 

“Hm, I just can’t sleep and this thing is just a family heirloom,” Keith sighs, looks at the sword for a long second, then shifts and sets it on the coffee table. Shiro sits next to him then. “I haven’t been home in a long time.” His ear flicks and he glances at Shiro. “You probably don’t care about that, huh?” Well, that’s true. He’d still rather go back to Earth than just about anything else, but he’d prefer not to think about that more often than he does.

“I’m worried about you,” Shiro says. Keith’s brows lifts lightly in surprised. “You’ve been acting weird lately, but whenever I ask, you insist everything is fine. It can’t be though, if you’re sitting up in the middle of the night with a sword in your lap.”

“It’s complicated,” Keith says, sagging into the couch. Shiro growls lowly. 

“I literally  _ can’t  _ go anywhere but with you, Keith. I’m not on a time crunch here, you can take as long as you need to explain it to me, but I can’t stand being in the dark anymore. There’s  _ something  _ going on. I know it, and you keeping me out of it like this is making me feel like...a child,” Shiro insists. Keith is quiet for several seconds, his ears twitching back a little. 

“There’s nothing you can do about it,” Keith says. 

“I want to! Keith, isn’t it more trouble keeping me out when I have to follow you around everywhere? If I knew, at least I could  _ be  _ there for whatever you need instead of you having to lock me in the damn office again. What am I even here for? What did you stab me with that thing for?” Shiro points to the sword resting on the table in front of them. “At the very least, I could be a second pair of eyes for you, but right now I feel like I’m just wasted here.” 

Keith is quiet, so quiet Shiro can hear him breathing. He looks at the sword and his fingers twitch, he clearly wants to take it up again, but Shiro is sure it’s more for the comfort it gives him than to turn it against anyone. This is the smallest Shiro’s ever seen Keith. So far, he’s always been the one in charge, the one giving him orders and dragging him around behind him, but now, he barely looks like he has the energy to leave the couch, much less face whatever’s bothering him. Shiro sits up, turns more to Keith and offers one of his hands. 

“Can I?” he asks softly. Keith stares at his hand, then at Shiro, then back again. After a second’s pause, he reaches up and grabs Shiro at the elbow. Not quite right, but Shiro takes it as a go ahead and presses himself even closer. He wraps his arms around Keith and pulls him in against his chest, holding him there tight. Keith stiffens, digs his claws into Shiro’s arm a little, but he doesn’t fight to get out of Shiro’s hold. There’s just a pause while Keith mulls over what’s happening before he gives in and rests his head on Shiro’s shoulder. 

He’s surprisingly soft. Not only his hair where it tickles the side of Shiro’s neck, but his ears to. He feels it flicking lightly when it brushes his jaw, then Keith pulls it back when he presses his face a bit deeper into his shoulder. He’s warm too and feels even smaller than Shiro expected. There’s not that much at all to the person who owns him. Keith takes a slow, deep breath, and Shiro feels the soft bumps of his ribs under his fingers. 

“I don’t know what to do,” Keith sighs. He doesn’t hug Shiro back, but he grips his arm tighter, steadying himself. 

“Let me help you figure it out then. I’ll be here no matter what you decide,” Shiro hums, rubs his palm up and down Keith’s side, rests his cheek in Keith’s hair. He notices that Keith’s nervousness isn’t pulling at his binding quite so hard anymore. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you find where I accidentally did a meme and then decided to keep it in there?


	7. That's The End of It

“When I was at the Garrison,” Shiro says, watching Keith squint at his tablet, his claws tapping gently on the screen as he types. “There was this kind of scandal going on of an instructor raising student’s test scores in exchange for money.” Keith pauses, a little frown pulling at the corner of his mouth, and Shiro wonders if he’s actually listening to him, or just focusing on filling out forms. 

“Garrison?” Keith asks after a couple seconds. His eyes narrow at the screen. Shiro knows he’s reading, but it’s still hard to tell if he were just watching the Galra’s mono-colored eyes. Shiro hums. 

“It’s like uh...a military installation? But it specialized in space exploration,” he says. Keith doesn’t answer long enough to type out a few short things. He scrolls, shuffles through his paper evidence spread out around the kitchen island around them, then taps out something longer. “I worked there.” 

“But it was a school too? You said there were students and...grades? Are those like marks?” Keith asks. Even though he seems casual as he’s filling out these forms, just like he’s putting together a report for work, Shiro can still feel that now all too familiar tug of Keith’s anxieties jumping around in his chest. Shiro had been a little worried about trying to start conversation while Keith was putting together such a touchy document like a report of corruption, but Keith hasn’t pushed him away and he seems happy enough to have the distraction. 

“If marks mean a measure of understanding, then yes,” Shiro says. One of Keith’s ears swivel back towards him when he turns and reaches across the island for another stack of paper. “It was my first year there as an officer and finding out something like that was going on, it really pissed me off.” 

“What’d you do?” Keith asks. He flips through the papers, pulls one out and skims his eyes over it. Then he sets it down and gives Shiro his full attention. 

“Reported him,” Shiro says. He fiddles with some of the mess spread out before them. “Like you’re doing now. But I did it all anonymously. I didn’t want him coming into my office and… I don’t even know. He’s a little old man. But there was a… it wasn’t good to be rat. No one would trust you anymore and I was already the new guy.” Keith’s brow furrow a little and Shiro realizes a Galra would have no idea what a rat meant, neither the animal or his colloquial use for it. 

“Whistleblower? Snitch? Ah, crap,” Shiro huffs. “Like, someone who brings corruption to light.” Keith laughs a little, a light sound that loosens some of the tightness in Shiro’s chest. 

“Am I being a ‘rat’ right now?” Keith asks. He fans the papers at him gently. “You’re the one who told me to give them my name when I put this report in.” 

“I guess some people would think so, but I’d rather you do this than just ignore it,” Shiro thinks of those druids and shivers. He hasn’t seen one in weeks, but just thinking that Keith was getting in contact with them. Ugh. They already did that weird magic and research, why were they also in charge of internal affairs?

“I don’t have a choice,” Keith says. He goes back to the datapad, types a little more, looking back and forth between the screen and the papers now resting in his lap. “I don’t know how things go in this Garrison place, but if anyone were to find out about this and then that I had known about it, I’d be just as guilty through omission.”

“That’s not good,” Shiro says. Keith hums and again, that tightness around his chest. 

“No, I don’t think either of us would be around very long after that,” Keith says. “At least if I’m the one putting this bullshit in, they’ll be inclined not to go full power crazy on me.” 

“We’ll be okay?” Shiro asks. Keith glances at him and it’s just the slightest edge of worry in his features that takes Shiro back. He’s really worried about this, more than he’s letting Shiro know outright. “We’ll be okay,” Shiro says. But now he says it firm and sure, reaches out and touches Keith’s shoulder.

* * *

 

“Mn,” Diada grunts. It’s this low, growling sound that Shiro recognizes by now as something he does when starting a train of thought he knows he shouldn’t particularly go down. It’s the same sound he makes when he talks about the other gladiators or, more often, when he talks about Vikit while his master’s out of earshot. “I shouldn’t be saying this, but Vikit’s son’s run off.” 

“You shouldn’t?” Shiro asks. They’re both standing quietly outside of Keith’s office, their usual gossiping spot overlooking the rest of the office. At first, those working at the desks would try to listen in on them, now they’re no more interesting than furniture. “How come? Are you worried?” 

Diada turns his thick head a little to look at him better. He opens his mouth and Shiro can see the two rows a sharp, crocodilian teeth past shallow lips. Diada hesitates almost like he’s already said too much, or trying to put together what he does want to say, and Shiro can only hope that he can’t sense that his stomach has nearly dropped to the floor. 

Is he talking about Osin, the Galra he and Keith had encountered in the hallway a few days back? He had claimed to have been visiting his father, Vikit. A civilian on a massive military ship who apparently had no qualms about stealing crackers so long as he left the money for them on the counter.

“Me? No,” Diada hums gruffly, “I don’t care in the least. Both of his sons are grown and long out of the nest, so I figure he can fend for himself by now, but Vikit’s been funny about it.” Shiro looks across the office to Vikit’s office, where the massive Galra is sitting at his desk.

“He has been pretty quiet today,” Shiro muses. 

“Kind of a shame though,” Diada says. “Osin was kind enough. It was a nice change compared to his father, or that other one,” Diada pauses, thinking. “Uh, Vesin. I think. Whatever his name is working for the Galra prince.” Diada blinks, a third eyelid flickering across the orb. “Kept his dad off my back for a week or so, at least.” 

“You liked him?” Shiro asks. He has to be careful about this. He wants to look back at Keith through the window behind him. He knows Keith is working on the last touches of those counts before he hands them in to Vikit today. This, this was relevant to the report Keith had just put in a few nights before. Diada might give him a more solid hint of what was going on. If he could just squeeze out a few details before anyone figured out what was going on, maybe he could use it to help Keith’s position. 

“Mm,” Diada starts. “He was funny. In the kind of way that he wanted to talk all the time, but never about himself. But, I don’t know. He seemed genuine enough, which is something you don’t see around here very often. Maybe it’s a military thing.” 

Shiro ponders over that, tries to put all the pieces together. Vikit being the only other person knowing about the vaults. The missing supplies, not to mention the nature of them. Osin, the son. A civilian visiting just at the same time this drama is coming to a head. The stolen crackers. The orange sash around his hips, something to stand out against a drab outfit. Osin disappearing suddenly and without explanation only a few days after Keith had submitted a report about the missing items.

Were the druids looking into this already?

Did Osin have anything to do with it?

How was Vikit involved? Diada?

Why?

“He just, what, up and disappeared though?” Shiro presses when he senses Diada isn’t going to get around to that on his own. “That’s weird.”

“A little,” Diada says. “But I’m kind of not surprised. The other son’s always busy, and off doing whatever he does, but Osin is just...mm, he seemed like the kind of guy to just flit around however he liked. However,” Diada shrugs. “Vikit was happy to have someone around besides me. He was pretty upset to see that Osin had just vanished in the middle of the night.” Shiro frowns.

“Is it just the two of you?” he asks. Half of him is still prodding for insights about Keith’s suspicions, but the other is almost painfully curious. Diada grumbles. 

“Yeah, it’s just been me and him for the past few years,” Diada again tips his head, looks at Shiro, his green eyes glinting in the pause. “Eh, don’t let him know I’m talking about this, but his wife died a few years ago.” Shiro glances at Vikit’s office and Diada pushes him gently in the arm. “Don’t look! He’ll come over here and butt in.”

But Shiro can’t help but think about his own father. Even though his parents had divorced when he was a kid, when his mother died, it had changed his father in a weird, almost imperceptible way. They hadn’t lived together for years, but it was still painfully obvious that he missed her, even as a friend. Shiro thinks about calling his father late at night at the Garrison and his chest aches. There’s too much he misses about home.

“Sorry,” Shiro shoves the memory of his father’s voice to the back of his mind. He’s too busy right now. “Sons don’t visit often?”

“If it says anything, I’ve only met the either of them twice. Including her funeral.” Diada deflates a little then, looks to the floor and mutters something Shiro doesn’t quite catch, a foreign word he can’t discern through the way Diada mutters it. “I’d never have it in me to never see my own father. It’s the only thing I’ll give Vikit slack on, you know?” 

“Yeah, I can see that,” Shiro sighs. “Even bad people have families.” 

“He’s a awful bastard, but I’d have to be blind not to see how much he cares about those kids of his.” Vikit nearly looks pained as he says it, like it’s hard for him to admit a fact that he can’t deny.  Then, after a deep breath, Diada looks up when the door to Keith’s office clicks open and Keith emerges with a thick folder held against his chest. Shiro can feel Diada’s stare in the back of his neck the entire time they silently watch Keith cross the office to knock on Vikit’s door. 

“You’re not going to tell anyone about this,” Diada says. Not asking. He tells Shiro this like it’s a fact. “He’ll give me hell if he hears I’ve been talking about his family.”

“No,” Shiro says. Guilt rises up in his throat watching Keith talk to Vikit. Keith hands Vikit the folder, gets a thinner one in return. “That’s private. Of course I’m not going to tell anyone.” Except Keith. And the druids. Or whoever else comes sniffing around. Anyone that poses a threat to Keith will get every word Diada’s said to him. But, meeting Keith’s eyes as the small Galra makes his way back, he thinks: 

It’s worth anything to keep him safe.

* * *

 

“So, aside from everything you talked about with Diada, Vikit told me something else interesting,” Keith says. Shiro watches him where he’s bent over a piece of paper and oddly, this one looks more like the thin, floppy kind he’s used to at home. It doesn’t suck up Keith’s writing and change it into something else. Right now Keith is writing out the Galra alphabet, each letter marked out in blocky script with lots of space in between each one because Shiro had requested he have room to take notes. Which is fine, Keith has very nice handwriting in that sharp, even kind of way, but he’s written out almost forty characters so far and he’s not stopping yet. 

“What did he tell you?” Shiro asks. He has his own few sheets of paper (still sandpapery, but his marks stay true) and he’s already written out the English alphabet on it. He’s probably using it wrong, tipping the pen to write with the very tip of it, while Keith uses the full width of the nib to make thick lines. 

“So, I don’t know if you remember this, but besides counting all that shit in the vaults, I was supposed to set aside supplies for a small assignment out...somewhere,” Keith says. Shiro counts the letters. 52, 53, 54… Fifty-four. The Galra alphabet had over double the number of the English one. 

“Okay,” Shiro hums. “I think I remember you arguing with Vikit a little over not knowing anything about it.” Which, honestly, he took Keith’s side on that. He wouldn’t pack for a camping trip with no knowledge of how many people were coming or what weather to prepare for. 

“Well, now we know more about it. Vikit told me when I put in my counts earlier today. Apparently a lot of it was either pending or classified until a couple days ago,” Keith is finished writing out his letters, but he drums his claws on the paper and pulls over another one, but now he starts writing down some more complex symbols. Shiro recognizes seeing a couple of them on signs around the ship and wonders what they mean. Perhaps general warnings? “Normally, I wouldn’t care, but I thought you should know that this particular trip turns out to be our next assignment.”

“They finally told you where you’re going next?” Shiro asks. He has to be honest with himself. Part of him has kind of gotten used to the monotony of Keith’s life here. Waking up at the same time, going the gym, following him to an office job, occasionally visiting with Thace and Ulaz. It was low stress, which Shiro was grateful for considering the fragmented memory he had of the past...year or so. Yeah that was about right, Ulaz had told him he’d been here for almost a year. 

But he’d always been curious why he was acting as Keith’s bodyguard when there was nothing going on. 

“They did,” Keith squints, a slip of pink tongue showing between his lips as he tips his pen, marks a few tiny dots on one last symbol. He pushes all the papers to Shiro, and Shiro only has the one to give him in return. “But don’t get too excited. We’re just going right back to where I was before.” 

“The… seventy light years away place? Uh...it was a trade post, right?” Shiro sags a little. Well, if Keith was just going back to a previous assignment, then there wasn’t really much to get excited about. 

Shiro reminds himself that traveling  _ seventy light years  _ was still a pretty big deal for a human, even if they were just going somewhere where Keith was already known. He mentally pokes himself. Better that to get your toes wet out in the field than someplace magnificently dangerous and unknown. 

Keith smiles a little at his wording but oddly, Shiro feels a tightness across the back of his shoulders. From Keith? Shiro hums, tries to read Keith’s expression. “Are you worried about something with it?”

“Well, it’s a while back, but I still don’t know why I was pulled off of it in the first place. And I’m not necessarily going back to what I was doing before. Same place, different assignment. Instead of…” and Keith hesitates there, which Shiro finds a little weird, “setting up trade. It’s marked down as exploration and recovery. I still don’t know what that means specifically. I haven’t been briefed yet.” 

“So what’s the problem?” Shiro asks, and now he knows for sure that the tension in his shoulders is coming in from Keith, who flicks his ear like he doesn’t quite want to tell Shiro anything. “I mean, anything I should know about?” Shiro tosses around in his head, thinks of anything he can of Keith’s earlier assignment. “Whatshisname, Sendak?” He knows he’s hit it right when Keith relaxes and rolls his eyes, tapping the papers covered in alien letters resting in front of Shiro. 

“Besides that I don’t really want to be around him again? And he still hasn’t told me anything about anything important? No, there’s not too much going on. Don’t worry about it until I tell you to,” Keith says. 

“Keith,” Shiro huffs. “We just talked about this the other day. I can’t help you if you don’t let me in on what’s going on.” Then Keith catches his eye and such a strong feeling of  _ don’t go there  _ washes over him it catches him off guard. Keith shuffles the paper in front of him. 

“Shut up. Right now, I need to teach you to read well enough that you don’t end up killing yourself on something stupid.”

* * *

 

They come for them right after work one day more than a week after Keith had made his report, catching Keith and Shiro in the hallway not far from Keith’s apartment. Two druids, both still, silent things, loom taller than either Keith or Shiro despite being hunched slightly at the shoulder. 

This time, the goosebumps racing over Shiro’s skin are all his own. Keith, amazingly, seems almost put out that the druids would come to talk to him, like they’re just another errand to run before he can go home and relax for the evening. But the druids pull up something visceral and dark in Shiro’s stomach. Something that hurts him, but that he can’t quite pin down. Something beyond that nervous week kept in the lower levels before Keith bound him. 

The druids glance first to each other, a slight shift of their masks, before they again turn on Keith. “Commander Keith,” the one on the left greets. “We need you to come down to the lower levels with us. We have an incident to discuss, I understand.” Both masks twitch towards Shiro and it takes everything he has not to push Keith behind him and away from their prying, beaked stares. “Your slave must come as well.” Keith nods. 

“We’ll follow then.”

Two different sides of Shiro fight with each other when all four of them cram into an elevator. Keith, thankfully, is kind enough to put himself against the back wall so Shiro can fit himself into the space in front of Keith and behind the druids. He  _ has  _ to be  _ right here _ , a wall between his master and these...things that brought up sharp feelings of mistrust in him. Part of him is determined to keep Keith out of harm’s way, but the less reasonable part of him wants to curl up and get himself as far away from this as he could. 

He takes a deep breath, looks over his shoulder at Keith. The small Galra still seems completely fine. Shiro’s not getting any waves of anxiety or fear from him. There’s only a sense of calm coming through his binding and Shiro tries to use it to steady himself before he has the chance to lose his nerve. 

Keith had briefed him for this beforehand, a few days ago and even though Shiro had found it rather obvious at the time, he’s thinking back on it now, as the elevator comes to a halt and the door opens on a dark hallway. 

‘They’re going to separate us. Don’t freak out about it. They’re just asking questions and they’re not going to do anything if you don’t give them a reason to. Don’t feel like you have to lie about anything. Tell them what you know and don’t worry about it.’ 

That was all fine when Keith was drilling that into his head over dinner, but now, as one of the druids turns and makes him stop with an outturned hand. It’s getting harder to maintain his composure. Keith meanders past him with the other druid and they share one last glance before the druid leads him into a room and the door shuts between them with a hiss. 

_ Keith is in that room with someone I can’t trust.  _

“This way,” the druid next to him says. A door to his side opens and inside is a small, square room, bare except for a single chair in the middle. 

_ They’re already suspicious of us.  _

Shiro walks in ahead of the druid. He sits in the chair and a bright light comes to life in the ceiling above him. He blinks against the sudden brightness but the light washes out the room enough that all he can see of the druid is a faint outline lurking against the wall. 

“This is an interview to ascertain the nature of the incident Commander Keith reported on the fifteenth day of the third quarter of the year 10801.” Shiro faintly registers the massive number the druid’s using for the year, he’s too busy trying to will his heart back down his throat. He shifts in his chair, sits up straight and licks dry lips as the druid continues his introduction. Shiro can only assume he’s being recorded. “I, Lyac, am interviewing the commander’s bonded slave.”

_ The druids have already hurt me before, but I don’t know how. I don’t know what they’re capable of.  _

The druid turns minutely and Shiro doesn’t have the nerve to look him in the face. He stares somewhere near it’s shoulder instead, biting his tongue to level himself. Even though his binding is chafed over being separated from Keith like this, he knows this fear is all his own. Otherwise he can’t sense Keith at all. Whatever connects them is perfectly still. Keith even now, in the middle of an interview with a druid, is perfectly unperturbed.

‘He’s fine. So you’re fine too,’ Shiro tells himself. Don’t think about the creeping feeling he’s getting from this druid, like it recognizes him and already has a reason to dislike him. Don’t think about the little piece in the back of his mind hopping around and  _ screaming  _ that druids were bad news. 

“What is your name?” the druid asks. Shiro snaps his attention off the tightness in his gut and to the faded shape of the druid standing against the wall. 

Shiro clears his throat. “Takashi Shirogane.” 

“What are you?” is the next question. Shiro hesitates. What does he mean by that? Human? Former gladiator? Champion? A scientist? A pilot? A slave? By the time all these things have flitted through his mind he’s starting to worry he’s hesitated too much. The druid will get suspicious of him. He’ll come to conclusions. 

_ He’ll hurt Keith.  _

That thought itches under his skin. It’s true but it’s  _ wrong.  _ It’s something that absolutely cannot become a reality. He’ll die before he lets someone hurt Keith. It’s his only purpose. Shiro swallows, his arms aching where he grips the side of the chair. 

“What are you to Commander Keith?” the druid clarifies. He doesn’t move and even though Shiro still won’t look him in the eye he can feel the druid looking at him, taking in his body language. 

“I-I’m his slave,” Shiro says. The phrase has a weird weight on his tongue, the verbal admittance of his station. Just like when he had ceased to be a pilot and become a gladiator, he had ceased to be a gladiator to become a slave. 

“What do you think of him?” the druid adds. What did this have to do with the report, the missing goods? Keith… he forgot that Keith was his owner sometimes. When they were just at home,  _ Keith’s  _ home, talking or cooking dinner or watching a movie, Keith was somewhat of a roommate. Maybe not a friend, but someone he got along with well enough. He couldn’t say how much of his concern for him was genuine or what came from his binding, but he’d known for a long time that he didn’t approach his role as a bodyguard with the same kind of spite Diada did. He didn’t mind it. He...wouldn’t trade it for what he had before. 

At any rate, Keith was someone he could trust. Just tell the druid the truth and don’t worry about it. They’ll be fine. Keith still wasn’t nervous. 

“Uh,” Shiro pauses, sorting through a hundred different things he could say. “We get along well.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Yes.” Shiro can answer this without hesitation. 

“Do you believe him to be loyal to the Empire?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe him to be loyal to Lord Zarkon?”

“Yes,” Shiro says. That’s...that’s a lie, but it had come out so easily. No thought involved. He blurted out his answer and he was  _ sure  _ that it was the right answer to give here, even if it wasn’t necessarily true. He tells the druid yes and then his brain catches up to it a couple seconds later. The image of Keith in the first day of his binding telling him he was only interested in Zarkon’s opinions enough to keep his fur. No, in reality, Shiro didn’t suppose he was specifically loyal to Zarkon. That he didn’t care too much about the emperor's aspirations or feelings. Only what he had to to keep his head and Shiro supposes that makes him loyal enough to tell this druid that he was and not fear repercussion. 

“Then I don’t suppose there’s much use in asking this, but for the sake of being thorough: Are you loyal to Commander Keith?” the druid asks. He hadn’t even paused of Shiro’s half lie (had he lied?) and apparently couldn’t sense Shiro’s train of thought. 

“More than anything,” Shiro answers. He feels like he’s crossed a hurdle here. The druid didn’t instantly see through him and bring down any kind of fury. 

Just tell the truth.

Answer their questions. 

They’ll be fine. 

He’s out of the interview first, and Keith doesn’t follow him out what feels like a good part of an hour. Not surprising, as Keith had more context and details to go over. But nonetheless, it had made Shiro nervous, but there was nothing he could do about it. At least the druids had ignored him then, and let him linger in the hallway just outside of the room Keith was in. It was like they knew that he wouldn’t be able to hear anything no matter how close he got. So all he could do was repeat to himself over and over again that they were fine, he just had to wait, and he had just answered his questions to the best of his ability. 

Keith never did seem bothered by any of this, and it was strange. Things that had him wound up and nervy for the past couple of weeks suddenly didn’t bother him at all. And while Shiro didn’t quite know what that meant (Had Keith come to terms with something? Was this just how he did interviews? Trained for it?) it was something he could take solace in. The more he thought about it, the more he was getting used to his binding. Instead of weird feeling washing over him every once in awhile and taking him by surprise, he knew now that it was some kind of empathic connection he had with Keith. Instead of just dealing with whatever Keith was feeling he just weathered through, it was something he could react on. Fix what was wrong or, like now, when he was clearly the more upset between the two of them, it was something almost pleasant. Keith’s calmness wasn’t some intangible feeling, but a more solid  _ thing  _ in the back of his mind, real enough that he could teethe at it while he waited and remind himself that, as far as Keith felt, they were perfectly fine. Even though they were separated, Shiro was still doing a good job here. 

It was all he could do not to press himself on Keith when the door opened and Keith walked out into the hallway, looking for all the world like he had just done nothing more mundane than waking up in the morning or take off for his lunch break. They both pause, Shiro’s head nearly swimming with relief at seeing that Keith is unharmed (just like he had known, but  _ still _ ) and Keith giving him a look akin to amusement. Without a word, Keith takes the lead and Shiro follows him all the way down the hall back towards the elevators. They’re allowed to board it alone. 

“They asked me about Vikit,” Shiro admits once the doors are closed behind them and the elevator lurches upwards. “And Osin. I wasn’t expecting them to know about that.” Keith doesn’t seem bothered, though when he glances at Shiro, his eyes linger. 

“I’m not surprised. They’ve probably been investigating all of this since the day I sent that report in. If they’re coming up with the same names, then maybe my hunch about them was right? What did you tell them about it?” Keith asks. Shiro pants softly. The elevator’s momentum feels harder on his knees than it really should. 

“Just what I knew. Whatever you told me,” Shiro says. Keith reaches out for him then, his hand grabbing Shiro by the elbow in a flash. Blunt nails dig into the tender flesh on the inside of his arm. Shiro uses the other to steady himself against the wall. 

“What happened?” Keith asks. Now all that calmness that had been a weighted, warm presence in the back of his mind drops down the back of his throat into the all too familiar sharpness of worry. “You’re really pale.” Then that  _ thing  _ that’s Keith’s emotions inside him simmers along the backs of his ribs.

Anger. 

“Did they do anything to you?” 

Why would Keith be angry?

“No,” Shiro sighs. “I…I’m fine.” What was it? He feels drained, like he’s back in his cell after a particularly taxing match in the Arena. Like he’s come too close to something dangerous but somehow eked his way past it. Like’s he’s survived when he really wasn’t supposed to.

“You’re shaking,” Keith says. The simmering tempers itself a little as Keith lets off his grip some and allows Shiro to brace more of his weight against the wall of the elevator. He focuses more on the feeling of Keith’s fingers, the soft and almost velvety texture of his fur and less on how fast his heart is hammering in his throat. Shiro realizes what’s happened and he laughs, but it sounds more like he’s choking. 

“I just don’t like being down there is all,” Shiro says. “I guess I didn’t realize how tense I was and now it’s caught up to me.” Keith frowns, circles his fingers around his wrist. Not holding his hand, just enough to keep him steady. 

“Well, lay down when we get back. I think that’s the last we have to worry about it,” Keith says. The elevator comes to a stop and Keith tightens his grip on Shiro’s wrist, as if he could hold him up like that if Shiro couldn’t brace for the stop.

* * *

 

The next day, Keith doesn’t have work and it passes quietly.

* * *

 

They day after, they walk into an office nearly fogged over in the weight of the silence hanging around everyone. Keith hesitates in the door, and when Shiro looks around, he notices two very prominent absences. Vikit and Diada are nowhere to be found. 

Well, maybe they’re late, Shiro reasons. He follows Keith to his office and he can tell in the tense way he holds ears and how he drops into his chair that he’s thinking the same thing Shiro is. The druids really had come to the same conclusions Keith had, and now, for whatever they had been doing, they were paying for it now. 

Shiro isn’t sure how he feels when he settles into his own chair. Part of him is relieved, almost happy, that it seems to be over. This strange conspiracy threatening his master and stressing him out for the past weeks is finally past them. Somehow, he feels like he’s overcome his first obstacle as a bonded slave. But there’s still a part of him that’s  _ guilty  _ for this. He knows perfectly well how cruel things are around here. He knows what it’s like to be a prisoner, a gladiator on this ship and it’s not like Earth. Nothing here is like Earth. Maybe if he knew that Vikit and Diada has simply been taken to prison like those back home, he could probably deal with it. But here? There was no telling what their fate was.

Silence hangs between them while Keith starts on to work. It’s not long before it starts nagging at Shiro and he has to break it. “What do you think is going to happen to them?” he asks quietly. 

“Don’t,” Keith cuts in. He gives Shiro a sharp look, ears pulled back in his irritation. “There’s nothing you can do about it now and trust me, this isn’t something we could of kept quiet about,” Keith turns back of his desk, reading. “You know that, so now that it’s over, you don’t get to feel sorry about it.”

“Do you?” Shiro asks. Keith says that, and while harsh, it isn’t like he can’t see the truth in it. But, he had liked Diada. He was the only other person on this ship who really knew the things he’d gone through and while they never dared talk about it in detail, there was an understanding between them. “Feel sorry?” 

“No.” 

That’s the last they talk about it.

* * *

 

For a week.

Until they’re sitting on the couch one evening and a dark purple envelope slips in under the door. Shiro fetches it, fielding the foreign object before Keith can have it. It’s thick, textured like vellum with a red and black engraving around the edges. The only thing he can read on the front of it is Keith’s name and rank, so he can only assume the other bit is the name of whoever this letter is from.

He brings it back to Keith who’s still curled up on the couch, but when he holds it out Keith pauses, his eyes flicking between the envelope and Shiro like he’s brought him something distasteful. Keith takes it, turns it over and back in his hands before he pulls it open.

Shiro settles in beside him again and tries to glance at the letter Keith pulls out over his shoulder and then when Keith doesn’t push him away he tries to decipher it. He squints, but only gets a little information out of it. Keith’s name again. Box. Gathering. 

“An invitation?” Shiro asks. Keith doesn’t answer him. He reads the letter. Reads it again. It’s only a few paragraphs, but whatever it is Keith’s nerves start itching under Shiro’s skin. Shiro shifts, worried now, and presses closer, touching shoulders as if he could read any better half an inch closer. “What is it?”

Keith tosses the letter and envelope both, and they go fluttering to the carpet. 

“Our wonderful Lord Zarkon requests  _ our  _ presence in the Emperor's Box at the Arena. Tomorrow night. For Vikit’s execution.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm fully aware that I get kind of heavy handed somewhere there in the middle.
> 
> Bonus points if anyone remembers who Lyac the druid is. 
> 
> Gonna go ahead and put a warning out that uh, next chapter is gonna be Pretty Dang Dark. Both in the bloody and psychological trauma kinds of ways. If the end of this chapter didn't give you a heads up. There's gonna be some action. And lots of questions will be answered. And Shiro's going to have a lot of fun. This is will be a great party for the climax of the first storyline!
> 
> And I haven't really decided how I'm going to handle those who don't really want to read dark things because it's gonna be pretty thick, content wise.


	8. Audience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all gitwrecked (or wrecked_anon on ao3) was kind enough to beta this chapter for me. They did a wonderful job because oh boy this was A Mess beforehand. 
> 
> I'm so sorry I took so long to post this! Between this and the next chapter there was some frustration, but I'm going to really aim to get the last of this storyline out pretty quick. 
> 
> This is not the rough chapter if anyone was worried about that.

Keith never really gets past the point of dozing throughout the night. But if he’s only gotten a little sleep, he knows Shiro hasn’t gotten any at all. Keith curls up in his bed, swivels an ear back to listen to the soft footsteps moving around in the other room. He’s been pacing for the past couple of hours, a loop through the living room and kitchen and back into the office. Keith has thought about telling him to stop and lay down, but he hasn’t quite found the heart for it. 

Shiro nears the bedroom door for probably the fiftieth time in the past hour and Keith turns over in bed to look at him. 

“Shiro,” he calls. He says it softly, like he isn’t quite sure if he should break Shiro out of whatever reverie he’s got himself in. While Shiro doesn’t look up at him, he comes to a stop, and Keith sees the slow rise and fall in his shoulders as he takes a deep breath. “Are you okay?” 

Shiro tips his head, glances at Keith where he’s still curled up on his side, his blanket pulled up under his arms. He hums, Keith’s ear twitching to pick up the barest hint of the sound. A heavy pause hangs between them. In the early hour, the apartment is near silent otherwise. 

“I can’t sleep,” Shiro says finally. 

“Well I can see that,” Keith replies. “I can’t sleep that well either.” 

Shiro flexes his prosthetic hand, opens it again. “Sorry, I’ll…” He’ll what? Put himself back in the office? 

Keith sits up and kicks the blankets down to the foot of the bed. He knows exactly how Shiro’s feeling. Nerves over this invitation to the arena. A personal meeting with Zarkon. Front row seats to death. It’s all accumulating as too much energy under his skin and he wouldn’t be surprised if he were winding Shiro up even worse through the link they shared. It’s times like this he isn’t sure how much likes this empathic link only going one way. Shiro gets a lot of Keith’s stress along with his own, along with probably the growing concern Keith feels over not being able to pick out  _ exactly  _ what Shiro’s feeling and address it in any decent way. 

“It’s not you keeping me up,” Keith says. He rolls out of bed, pads across the room and Shiro steps back out of his way even though he’s already well to the side. “I’m getting some water. Do you want something?” 

Shiro doesn’t answer him. Instead he just turns, circles back around the couch and sinks into it with a sigh. He leans back, settles his hands into his lap, and takes another slow, deep breath.

Keith gets his water. Then pours another glass for Shiro while he debates with himself over whether he wants to try and press him, or if this is just a time where he should leave Shiro alone and let him deal with it himself. Keith brings the glasses to the couch, sets Shiro’s on the coffee table in front of him with a soft ‘here’ and sits on the opposite end. He glances at Shiro over the rim of his glass as he takes a sip. Shiro is staring at his hands, his fingers knotted together in his lap. As Keith stares, he sees that Shiro’ shivering, and something akin to pity washes over him. He doesn’t deserve to be put through this, but Keith has no other choice.

* * *

 

Keith doesn’t know if it’s through Shiro having enough time to fit himself into some kind of calm, or if it’s Keith going about his normal morning routine that manages to pull Shiro out of his catatonic state. But that still isn’t saying a whole lot. Keith gets him to eat a little bit, and as a favor Keith even goes out of his way to crush up some bitter vitamin tablets and dissolve them in water. It makes something Shiro refers to as “min-tee”. While Keith thinks it’s unpalatable, he can’t say he’s unhappy to see him drink it.  It perks Shiro up enough that he’s at least willing to watch Keith writing out his list instead of staring at the wall. 

“There’s no work today,” Keith says. Shiro hums around the rim of his thermos. Keith waits a few beats, his ears already trained forward in anticipation of Shiro’s questions. They don’t come, and when he glances up Shiro’s fiddling with the spoon he’d used to stir sweetener into his drink. It’s a little odd to see Shiro disinterested in what he’s doing. Ever since he started teaching Shiro to read the Galra language, he’s been making a habit of trying to look at and puzzle out any little thing Keith read or wrote down. 

“I’m… writing down some specifications for a suit for you. You’ll need it for my next assignment,” Keith leads. Another pause. Just a little bit of information as a lure that he knew Shiro would normally snap up. He always wanted to know what was going on. “We’re going somewhere pretty warm.” Shiro takes another sip of his drink and hardly looks like he’s heard Keith at all. One of Keith’s ears flick, an edge of impatience rising in him over being ignored. “How well do you handle heat?” 

Now he knows Shiro is listening, because he makes this soft thinking sound and sets down his thermos, his fingers lacing around it. “I don’t know,” he says. Keith growls softly, because now Shiro’s blowing him off and yes, okay, Keith gets that he’s somewhere else, mentally. He’s stressed, but they’re  _ both  _ stressed and Keith doesn’t want to think about any of this any more than Shiro does. 

“That’s bullshit,” Keith huffs. Setting down his pen and standing up straight. “How can you not know how well you handle heat?” Some of the cloudiness in Shiro’s eyes clears at the sharpness in Keith’s voice. Something  _ angry  _ passes through his gaze, but faster than it can well up, it’s gone, and Shiro’s looking hard at the list under Keith’s hand. 

“I really don’t know. Not in any way to tell you definitively. Humans can acclimate to higher temperatures  _ on Earth  _ after a few days, but I don’t know how the place we’re going to compares,” Shiro says. 

“I heard to prepare for molten rock,” Keith explains. Shiro bites his lip. “But our camp will be somewhere milder. I’ll be uncomfortable, but I won’t need a suit at camp. I need to know if you will. And for context,” Keith says, motioning to himself. “The fur? I don’t do heat that well.” Even so, Shiro looks unsure. 

“I’ve never been off the ship,” Okay, Keith thought, Shiro’s reactions made a lot more sense. “but if the atmosphere is similar enough to here, I guess it’s fine. Humans just burn with too much sun.” 

“We have sunscreen,” Keith assures him, flicking his ear, but he writes down on his list to double check that they have plenty of things to handle any potential unhappiness with the camp environment. And an emergency suit, just in case. “So, on the same subject,” Keith says, knowing he’s about to broach a sensitive topic, but now that he’s got Shiro with him and talking about sunburns, he figures it’s the best opportunity he’s going to get. “You need something to wear for tonight.” 

Shiro curses under his breath, something sounding like “kriest” and all Keith can do is try to look sympathetic.

“It’s an audience with the leader of the Galra Empire, Shiro. You have to look nice, and there’s certain rules for bonded slaves out in public. Including how you’re dressed, so we have a lot to cover before I take you out in public properly. First thing is going to a tailor to pick up something for tonight and get them started on a suit for you before we leave. So get dressed.” Keith feels, oddly enough, a bit hopeful that he’s got Shiro properly distracted when his slave looks slightly irritated at the prospect of finding formal clothing. He picks up his list and heads towards his bedroom. He’d set out a tunic dyed in his colors on the bed to use for reference.

* * *

 

There’s only one tailor on the ship; a small, brightly lit little shop on one of the recreational floors. Though the carpet is a rather unregulation white, the place still carries the austere sensibilities of the rest of the ship. The only decorations are a few lengths of solid colored cloths and full length mirrors. Everything with a purpose. But the simple design of the shop doesn’t quite extend to the shopkeeper. When they walk in, the tailor looks up from her sewing, stares, then pushes up from the counter with a startled gasp. 

“Is that who I think it is?” she asks. She’s a female Galra, and as she rounds the corner and approaches them, Keith sees she’s of a similar size to Shiro. She’s dressed in a shimmery green dress, her white-blond hair swept into a short, stylish cut. She grins widely, glances between Keith and Shiro. “Is this Champion?” she asks. She reaches out to touch Shiro, but her claws barely graze across his shoulder before he shuffles back and presses towards Keith quick enough to bump him. 

Keith grunts softly and resists Shiro’s sudden pressing as well as he can and the tailor backs away with sheepish smile. “Yes, this is him, but I would prefer if you called him Shiro. He doesn’t go by Champion anymore,” Keith sighs. He tucks his fingers into his pocket and pulls out his list. 

“Shiro?” she asks Keith. Though Shiro nods his head in greeting, it’s obvious to Keith that he’s still massively uncomfortable with the attention, but still giving her the same kind of reserved politeness he resorts to for, say, his coworkers. The tailor introduces herself. “I’m Wess.” She’s still excited, but she tempers herself. “Sorry, I should have asked. But I’m such a fan! I had heard rumors that he was bound and uh…” she trails off when Keith holds his list out to her. She cuts herself off and takes the list from Keith. 

“I need that,” Keith says, “before the end of next week when we leave. Can you do it?” Wess reads it, nods. “Otherwise, we have an audience with Zarkon tonight and he needs something to wear.” Keith then holds out the tunic he had brought with them, the soft fabric the same peacock blue decorating his armor. 

Wess takes the tunic, turns it over in her hands and inspects the color. “If you don’t mind showing a bit more skin, I have something you just have to tie.” She says. 

“That’s fine,” Keith says. He can nearly  _ feel  _ Shiro’s disagreeing stare in the back of his neck but there’s little choice in the matter. “I need you to take his measurement for the suit, but otherwise I don’t really want to take more time than we need to by having you sew something.” She nods, points over to one of the mirrors.

While Wess goes to the back room Shiro narrows a stare at Keith. He’s not thrilled. 

“A bit more skin?” he asks quietly. “I get having to dress up nicer for meeting Zarkon, but what’s the thing about…” he motions to his own chest. 

“Take that off,” Keith says. He reaches out and plucks at the belt around Shiro’s waist, loosening the knot for him a little. “This thing is tonight, so we’ve got to work with whatever she’s already got. And no matter what you wear, you have to at least show your binding scar.” Shiro frowns as he unties his belt and shrugs off his tunic, then undoes the clasp at the back of the neck on his jumpsuit. 

“Don’t look at me like that; your scar is like a trophy. It’s something to be proud of,” Keith says. Shiro grabs the neck of his jumpsuit and starts peeling it off himself. Even though Keith knows Shiro doesn’t believe him, he has to say that as far as other binding scars he’s seen, Shiro’s is pretty nice. Some certain species are naturally resistant to scarring, but Shiro’s shows nicely against his skin without being an ugly mess. The fact that it rests overtop the thick muscle of Shiro’s chest doesn’t hurt either. 

Wess seems to think the same, because when she returns with a length of blue cloth in her arms, her eyes go wide seeing Shiro push the jumpsuit down to his hips. She holds out the cloth. “Can I touch you now to tie this?” she asks. Shiro’s brows twitch up in surprise that someone’s actually asking if he’s okay with it, but he nods. She tosses one end over Shiro’s right shoulder. 

“I can hem it in a couple minutes.” Keith watches as she loops it neatly at the small of his back. Each end goes around his hips once into a sharp overlap before she ties it into a flat knot at his left hip. “Okay?” she asks. 

Keith glances up and down Shiro even though he’s already made up his mind that he’ll go with it. It’s nice and wide and when Wess adjusts it properly it actually covers much of the right side of Shiro’s chest and his stomach. “I like it.” Wess pins the cloth where it needs to be trimmed and hemmed then pulls out a length of measuring tape. Shiro frowns.

* * *

 

“When you’re out in formal presentation, you have to stand here,” Keith says, nudging Shiro into a spot  just behind him and to the left. 

“Here?” Shiro asks, shuffling in place. He’s still standing so close that their shoulders nearly brush. If he’s that close tonight, he’ll be getting in the way, but Keith can’t quite find it in him to push him away when he’s been fighting his nerves. So Keith lets him bump close, feels the warmth of his skin seep through his shirt. 

“Yeah, usually,” Keith says, holding out his right hand, “we hold close range weapons in this hand, so if you’re trying to herd me around, the idea is that I won’t accidentally stab you, and you can still pull me away from whatever’s coming from this way,” Keith says, motioning from the right with his outstretched hand. 

“I would ask what’s the point of it on formal occasions then, but I don’t guess there’s much of one, is there,” Shiro asks flatly. Keith hums, moves over to Shiro’s left side and brushes his claws along his right flank. Shiro flinches away. 

“I don’t have to worry about reaching across myself if the guy to my left decides to try something funny, and you won’t get in my way if I have a grudge against the guy on my right.” 

Shiro’s brow furrows. “On Earth we call that medieval.” Keith twitches an ear. “It’s a period of time before humans had had a technological revolution.” 

“Are you calling the Galra backwards? Technological revolution or not, you’re the primitive one here,” Keith teases. To his pleasure, Shiro smiles lightly, and Keith takes that as an opportunity to move on. 

“You know, more people are going to want to touch you tonight, like the tailor did,” Keith says. Shiro makes a sound much like he’s bitten into something nasty. “But they have to ask me first.”

“I don’t want them to,” Shiro admits. “Wearing nothing more than a pair of tight fitting pants and a table runner is bad enough without a bunch of Galra trying to grope me.” 

“I know,” Keith says patiently. “If you get tired of people touching you, just touch my back like this,” he repeats the motion. “And I’ll start telling them no, okay?” Keith says. 

“I would  _ really  _ appreciate that,” Shiro says, and his fingers linger on Keith’s back even when Keith lets his wrist go.

* * *

 

Keith realizes, when the massive doors open and sound washes over them, that he hasn’t been to one of these gatherings in quite some time. Shiro’s almost right against his back, slightly off to the left as Keith had told him as they make their way through past the guards at the door and into the massive, high-ceilinged room. 

He would hesitate to call this a party. They aren’t celebrating anything besides the honor of an audience with the Emperor himself. But a spartan design and a room full of soldiers in light armor doesn’t really do anything to dampen the opulent feeling in the room. Maybe it’s the handful of slaves dressed in brighter, looser fabrics sprinkled like their own decorations. Most of the room is open, but along one of the walls are a couple tables with refreshments, and if Keith looks for them, he can see a few attendants moving between groups offering them out.  

“You okay?” Keith asks quietly. He leads the way further into the room and Shiro never lets up on how  _ close  _ he is. It’s a little different than the normal everyday hovering. Shiro’s even closer, bumping into him every time he slows, and he feels like such a tense presence behind him. Keith glances Shiro’s way and thinks of a yupper in a too loud room. “You’re not hiding, are you?” Keith teases gently, thinking maybe he could get Shiro to loosen up a little. 

First surprise, then a slight, sheepish kind of embarrassment crosses Shiro’s face. “I’m not hiding,” he says, backing away half a step and giving those near them anxious looks. 

Keith stops them in a relatively spacious area near the center of the room, no one within a couple arm lengths of Shiro so he could take the time to look around the room and breathe. Zarkon’s massive chair was in the front of the room at the top of the short flight of stairs. Though the emperor wasn’t there yet, guards were already posted on the steps. Otherwise, everyone else gathered mostly near the walls, or in little clumps in the middle of the floor. Keith glances through them, hoping to find someone who he at least knows their name, and to his surprise, he sees Thace.

“Come this way,” Keith says to Shiro, touching the inside of his arm until Shiro settles into step beside him. “Thank the gods Thace is here. Maybe this won’t be completely awful.”

They’re halfway across the room when Shiro lurches forward into Keith, shoving him hard enough to make him stutter step before he catches his balance again. Shiro  _ growls  _ and though humans don’t have particularly impressive growls, it’s enough to get a slave they were passing to jerk back into the side of their master. Keith turns, pushes himself between the two, mostly concerned but tossing in a little bit of an apologetic glance when he thinks of it. 

“Don’t touch me,” Shiro says lowly. The slave, a young looking Galra but another bonded, shuffles back a little more. Even though Shiro’s making him nervous, he still settles himself firmly between Keith and his own master. 

“What’s going on?” the other master asks. 

“I’m sorry, I just recognized you and didn’t think-” the bonded slave starts. 

Keith cuts in over him, to the other master, “Sorry, I think he’s just surprised-” 

“ _ Don’t fucking touch me, _ ” Shiro snarls over them all. Everyone within several feet of them goes silent and staring towards the outburst. The aggression in Shiro’s voice catches Keith by surprise and the fur on the back of his neck rises. He almost reaches back, thinks about grabbing Shiro’s arm and pulling him away, but something tells him that’s not a very good idea. Shiro’s already so on edge that he has to play the next few seconds very carefully and keep any of them from escalating further.

He looks at Shiro over his shoulder instead. Shiro’s got this weird look on his face, wide eyed, bare anger simmering just under the boiling point even when the other slave backs away and his master gives them all a couple seconds to assess the situation. 

He doesn’t  _ quite  _ know what to do here. He’d known Shiro had been on edge today, but not  _ this.  _ He’s never seen this cornered, almost wild, look and… he hadn’t realized how far Shiro’s already been pressed lately. He’d thought he’d been doing better damage control than this.

The other master flicks his ear irritably. “What is this?” he asks, calm but firm. Keith hears Shiro panting shallowly over his shoulder. Keith’s never heard Shiro make that kind of sound.

“I told him people would ask to touch him before we came here. I think yours just caught him by surprise,” Keith makes a show of being relaxed and, slowly, reaches back to touch Shiro’s side. He twitches, but stays where he is, his breathing slowly evening out, but still labored. Keith gives his best smile, and starts gently nudging Shiro past him, because forget the standing to the left hand side thing, he just needs to get out. The other master sneers, first a Shiro, then his own slave. 

“Keep an eye on him then. I don’t care how you handle things privately, but in polite company you have to keep a leash on him,” the master admonishes. Keith nods politely despite the irritation needling at him. He turns and pushes Shiro ahead of him. He needs to get him to a less crowded space before his nerves fray any more. 

The moment they’re out of the little crowd, Shiro presses his hand flat and firm to the small of Keith’s back. Keith looks, and Shiro’s expression is back to something like the flat weariness he’d seen this morning. ‘I know,’ Keith thinks to himself, his heart sinking. 

Thace sees them as they approach, nodding politely. Keith can tell by the look on his face that he’d noticed the hold up earlier;  it wasn’t that far off, but he doesn’t mention it, and Shiro finally takes his hands off Keith as settles back into his place, still tense and looking closely at everyone around him. Thace politely ignores that Shiro’s even there.

“What are you doing here?” Keith asks. He knows he and Shiro are here for Vikit, but Thace didn’t have anything to do with that, and as far as he knew, Thace’s life had been relatively quiet lately. Thace’s ears flatten a little, glances back towards Zarkon’s still empty chair. 

“I don’t know. I got a personal invitation the other day. Something about a briefing, but I don’t know for what, especially since Prorok wasn’t invited with me,” Thace says. Keith gives a tired smile, ignores when someone passes by them and Shiro stiffens beside him. He wishes there was a polite way to put a ‘do not touch’ sign on him and stop fussing over it. 

“I’m sure he’s happy about that,” Keith muses. 

“I didn’t tell him. I’m not going to unless this ends up being something that’s going to affect my office work,” Thace says. “Otherwise I’d never hear the end of it.” Keith frowns. Thace laughs quietly. 

“It’s  _ different  _ than whatever Sendak’s keeping secret. I swear. I’m not going to make Prorok needle me for it,” Thace says. 

“I’m starting to think I just can’t trust lieutenants at all,” Keith teases. “I’m pretty glad I don’t have one right now.” Thace laughs again, opens his mouth to reply when the entire room goes dead quiet and everyone turns towards the front of the room. 

Zarkon’s coming. Keith turns quickly and lifts up on his toes to whisper in Shiro’s ear. 

“When he comes in, copy me. I’ll get up first, but stay where you are until I tell you to,” he says. He turns back just in time to see Zarkon come into sight. The entire room drops to one knee for the time it takes Zarkon to take his seat. One of the guard introduces him and the salute ‘Vrepit Sa’ echoes through the room. The officers stand, but Shiro stays kneeling at his side. 

There’s a whole song and dance that always goes with these more formal occasions. Reciting vows of loyalty, declarations of the might of the Galra empires, so on and so on, the typical brain numbing tidbits at the start of any significant gathering. They’d do this all again in a couple hours when the majority of this party made their way to the private box at the arena. 

Another round of ‘Vrepit Sa’ and Keith motions for Shiro to stand again. The room again goes back to chatting, though now it’s muted, everyone too worried to drown out Zarkon as he makes whatever announcements he needs to private parties. Keith watches as two of the guards come down off the stairs and push their way through the crowd, looking for those first in line for Zarkon’s attention. 

While they wait their turn, the three of them, Keith, Shiro, and Thace, wind up near the wall. Thace makes a good distraction while the first few have their audience with Zarkon. It feels like breathing room, getting themselves off to the side of the crowd and talking to someone familiar instead of aching over what’s coming. While Shiro refuses to be anywhere but between Keith and the wall, Keith hooks his fingers in the fabric at his hip in hopes of keeping him grounded. 

A guard comes for Thace first. When he leaves, he seems entirely unfazed. But Keith feels something nervous creeping up the back of his neck the longer he talks with Zarkon. It seems too long, too many words passing between them, and it absolutely kills Keith that Thace has one of the best poker faces he’s ever witnessed. Zarkon could be handing him a death sentence right now and Keith wouldn’t know until someone started dragging him off. 

But eventually, Thace is let go, and he follows the guard down the stairs, then they both wind up coming over to Keith’s spot by the wall. When they near, Keith sees the tension in Thace’s ears, the deep frown and concerned furrow in his brow. With the guard nearing, Keith hesitates to outright ask him what’s going on and when their eyes meet Thace shakes his head. He lifts his hand in front of his stomach and, behind the guard’s back, flashes Keith a quick sign the Blades use as a signal for ‘Wait’. He’ll fill him in later. 

Keith shoves his concern back into something he hopes is unhurried and relaxed as the guard approaches him. “Commander Keith?” the guard asks. 

“Do I have to leave him here?” Keith asks instead of confirmation, motioning to Shiro. The guard glances between them, motions for them both to follow. 

“No, Lord Zarkon wishes to see him too,” he says. Keith wants to ask him what the hell for, but keeps it to himself. He follows the guard to the front of the room, ascends the stairs and thanks whatever deity is out there that Shiro not only follows him into another bow, but stays where he is when Keith stands again. Zarkon rises, and Keith feels ridiculous how small he is in comparison. He hardly comes up to the emperor’s chest. 

Zarkon nods to Keith, then motions to Shiro, twitching his fingers in a come hither motion. “Stand,” Zarkon rumbles. Shiro does and Keith feels what can only be described as apologetic pity when Zarkon grabs Shiro’s chin without asking and without any warning that he was going to touch him.

Shiro goes stiff and pale, gritting his teeth and looking very pointedly over Zarkon’s shoulder. Zarkon turns his head back and forth, tips his chin back. Zarkon then trails his claws down Shiro’s shoulder, over his chest, a massive thumb tracing the length of his binding scar. Shiro’s sweating, taking slow, deep breaths through his nose, his whole body tense to shivering. Keith holds his breath the entire time, his ears held tight enough they ache. 

“I worried giving him to an omega would lead him to be coddled and let him get out of shape,” Zarkon rumbles. Keith again tips his head politely, one hand remaining on his chest in a show of reverence. He bites back irritation by sinking his teeth into his cheek. 

Do. Not. Show anything in response to the omega comment, Keith chants in his mind. 

“No, sire, I’ve done everything I could think of to keep him in good health,” Keith says. “I’m eternally grateful that you would think to give me such a fine gift.” 

“I’m counting on you to keep it up,” Zarkon says, giving no indication he’s heard any of Keith’s groveling tone. “He’ll soon pilot the red lion, you know.”

It catches Keith so off guard that a solid second passes before he can gather together any kind of response. Long enough to see first confusion, then shock and a hint of fear pass over Shiro’s face. Shiro pulls his eyes off the wall behind Zarkon and glances to Keith, his brows furrowed and eyes wide.

The red lion?  _ Where the hell had the red lion come from?  _ Keith blinks, fully aware that he’s making an ass of himself in front of the emperor but having no power to fix it fast enough. 

“Vol-Voltron?” Keith stutters. Poor Shiro looks just as confused as he feels. Zarkon makes this gravelly hum and Keith flicks his ear quickly a few times, forcefully clearing his mind. “Sire, I apologize. You simply took me by surprise. I wasn’t aware the red lion was something within our grasp.” Zarkon waves him off, unbothered by his shock. 

“Sendak found it a few days before you were brought back to the main fleet,” Zarkon says. Keith suddenly understands why Sendak had been so tight-lipped despite Thace’s best efforts. “He reported his find directly to me instead of through his superior officer. That’s partly why you were brought back and given Champion instead of him. The other being I wouldn’t trust an alpha to take proper care of something so important.” 

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Keith starts. Zarkon nods in permission and he continues on, “That’s why he was promoted to Commander? Because he found the red lion?” 

“That, and someone needs to keep those efforts running while you were here,” Zarkon turns and seats himself again and Keith pushes himself closer to Shiro, who hasn’t moved the slightest this entire time. Keith nearly reaches out for him again but holds himself back at the last second, facing Zarkon respectfully. 

“This is your next mission.” Zarkon continues. “Sendak has the cavern with the red lion uncovered, but without its paladin, it won’t show itself and he hasn’t been able to break through and take it himself. Up until recently you were merely caring for an important weapon. Now I need you to escort him out,” Zarkon says, motioning to Shiro, “and escort both him and red lion back to me.His quintessence has been specifically tuned to the lions. You should have no problem achieving this.” Keith nods sharply, his heart leaping up his throat.

“I thank you for this opportunity,” Keith says softly. 

“I know you realize the gravity of what I’m entrusting you with. Don’t disappoint me,” Zarkon says. He waves them off. “You’re dismissed.” They both bow again, and Keith nearly forgets to tell Shiro to get up and follow him. The world feels a little fuzzy through the relief coursing through him. That’s over. He’s got a purpose now. There’s still  _ more  _ but defining it gives him something to focus on. 

This entire time, all of this worrying, and he wasn’t an important piece of this at all. It was all just taking care of Shiro. No one was thinking about him right now beyond the role of an escort and an omega. 

And they were not only trusting him with the red lion, but they had literally clipped the key to his belt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said this last time but NEXT chapter will be pretty rough in a few ways. I decided to break this bit into two parts so I could get all my plot out in one space and all the roughness out in another so I didn't have to essentially tell people who might be squicked to just get over it. D:


	9. Execution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! There's several things going on in this chapter even though it's a bit shorter than the others. 
> 
> 1\. I've been warning that this is a rough chapter for like a couple weeks, so if you don't like blood and gore and sadness, you might want to skip. 
> 
> 2\. Italics are flashbacks/episodes. I tried to keep them short and simple. 
> 
> 3\. No hard indicators for scene changes because well, Shiro's having a hard time and I don't know if dissociating counts as a scene change. 
> 
> 4\. I read in the past week or so that asking someone who's having a panic attack about something in minute detail is supposed to help, but I also was not going to write 500 words of that exact thing because that felt way too slow considering everything else going on. 
> 
> 5\. Please enjoy. I've been hyping this for a minute.

This cold numbness was nothing new. He’d kept it at bay this morning, through all of Keith’s prep for this gathering. He’d been pushing it all the way to the back of his mind when he had been dressed up and brought here. He was fine. He was exposed, but Keith was with him and nothing too bad would happen. 

Then that slave had touched him, and all his carefully penned nerves frayed. No one was supposed to touch him. His self-soothing was based on the fact that no one was supposed to take him by surprise like that and having that rule broken hadn’t left him with much more to lean on than Keith. 

And Keith couldn’t be much support at all when it came to Zarkon. 

He’d mentioned something about a red lion, something about Sendak, but his nerves roll over those details like oil over water as he watches the other guests filing out of the room towards the arena. The emperor’s claws are still tingling over his skin, thick lines down his chest and up his throat, like Zarkon is still gripping his chin and turning him from side to side like some kind of prize horse. 

_ “He’s coming along nicely,” a druid says, drumming his fingers in the center of Shiro’s chest. It has to be a druid, because their masks make these peculiar hooked silhouettes against the bright overhead lights. It’s too hot. The light makes his eyes ache even when he shuts his eyes tight and tries to block out most of it. He’s strapped to a metal table, warmed too much under the heat of the lamps.  _

_ It’s hot. He can’t breathe. But that’s his own fault. He struggled too much earlier and made them strap him down tighter. The fasten around his neck bites into his windpipe. He pants, flinches when one of the doctors brushes sharp claws over the aching remains of his right arm and pain flares through him so sharply he whines through his teeth.  _

_ “I really wouldn’t say that. He’s had a fever for days,” the doctor says. He grips Shiro’s right shoulder, pushes him hard into the table. Shiro feels the prick of a needle in the crook of his neck.  _

“Are you okay?” Keith asks again. They’ve stopped near the entrance of the room, the last of the other guests moving past them. Shiro blinks, lights fading to something more personable and less clinical. The pinprick of a needle stings in his neck.

But that’s months old. Right now his biggest pain is the chill of the room from showing too much skin. Keith is right here in front of him, his soft ears pressed forward in concern. Attentive. 

“Yeah.” His stomach aches because it’s knotted up so tightly up under his ribs it feels like he’s pulling a stitch. 

“You did really good,” Keith says. He reaches out, seems to hesitate for a second, and Shiro feels his concern bleeding in through his binding. Something intrusive, something not quite  _ his _ , but when his own mind is such a mess of nerves, he’ll take it. 

“I don’t remember anything about being up there with Zarkon,” Shiro admits softly as Keith grabs his forearm gently and starts leading him towards the tail end of the crowd and into the hall. Going to the arena. Chatting happily amongst themselves. “I- Oh, I don’t know…”

_ “How did you do this?” Ulaz asks. Shiro’s laying face down on a table and now the metal is too cold. Ulaz shows him a small aerosol can. “Pain reliever,” he explains before he shakes it and sprays it in little puffs over the ragged cuts across his upper back.  _

_ “I don’t remember,” Shiro lies. He doesn’t care what Ulaz is giving him. It could be pepper spray for all he knows. It doesn’t matter, because he never has a choice in anything anyways. The spray sets in and numbs him and he feels only the pressure of Ulaz’s hands as he starts to stitch him up. _

_ There’s no point in Ulaz explaining anything to him, just like there’s so point in him asking questions. The doctor knows perfectly well he’s been whipped for trying to escape.  _

“...a bit longer. Then we’ll go home and we can put this behind us.” Keith’s hand slides up to the back of his shoulder, hooking under the fabric hanging off it to make him stop. Shiro stiffens. Takes a deep breath when he remembers the present.

They’re in a bigger hall, in front of a massive set of doors. They’re open and through the entryway he sees rows on rows on rows of people. A quiet roar rolls out through the hall along with the intense heat of the lights and too many bodies packed together. The scent of sand and sweat something dull and tangy beneath turns Shiro’s stomach.

He shifts, breaks out into a cold sweat. He wrings his fingers in the cloth wrapped around him to try and dry his clammy hands, but it’s not enough. Keith steps between him and the door, but he’s not near tall or big enough to block anything out. 

“Shiro?” Keith calls. Shiro stares over Keith’s head. They’re the only ones left in the hallway now. Keith brushes one of Shiro’s arms where he’s gripping his wrap, gently tugs his fingers free. A pang of discomfort cuts through his thoughts like an alarm. He blinks, glances down between them where he’s got Keith’s hand in a death grip. 

It look painful, but Keith lets him hold on until he catches up to himself and loosens his grip. “Listen, Shiro,” Keith says. He pushes close, nearly bumping chests with him so he forces himself into Shiro’s view. “I know this is hard, but we don’t have a choice. Stay with me for just a little longer, okay? We’ll go home. Forget about it. Move on to other things. But you have to stay here until this is over.” 

“I-I’m okay,” he tells himself. How long has it been since his last time in the arena? He can’t remember when, much less what he actually did, and when he does it’s like his mind is simply blank. At least a couple months, but the scent and the sounds that wash over him as Keith leads him into the box by the hand brings back a slick nausea, sticking to the back of his throat. 

There’s only two seats left in the front of the box, slightly off to the right of the huge seat reserved for Zarkon and slightly in front of him. They settle in, and even though Shiro wants to close his eyes and steady himself, it’s like he’s physically unable to do so. There’s too many people too close to them. Someone he doesn’t know sits to Keith’s other side where Shiro can’t reach. Zarkon himself would sit right in Shiro’s blind spot. If he tried anything, Shiro wouldn’t stand a chance. He would have to twist around too much even after he noticed something was awry. He’ll just have to trust that they won’t want to try something. 

Honestly, Shiro’s just avoiding acknowledging the obvious, but it just can’t happen, especially when Keith’s interest is pulling at his binding and prompting him to join in. The crowds volume swells over the familiar sound of one the massive metal gates sliding open. Keith leans forward in his seat, squints down the tiered stands and into the pit. 

Shiro can’t decide if their height above the ring is a blessing because the figures are so small, or a curse because he has a perfect view of almost everything. Two sentries are leading Diada out from a gate beneath the box. He can hardly see the other slave at first glance because his scales blend in with the color of the sand puffing up around their feet. He’s been stripped down to the waist besides for a deep black collar set around his neck, a heavy metal chain attached with the other end coiled several times over around one of the sentry’s arms. 

They lead Diada to one of the thick pillars near the center of the ring. Diada waits patiently with only one of the sentries keeping a hold of his collar while the other paces around the pillar, wrapping the chain around it until he can clip it to itself. 

Even from up this high Shiro can read Diada’s body language, little of it as there is with the crocodilian simply allowing the sentries to chain him up. He’s seen that look too many times before. Another gladiator knowing that their run is over and that they’ll be facing something insurmountable. 

That feeling of, no matter how hard you fight, you’re going to die in the end anyways. 

Was he a part of the skimming, or was Diada merely suffering for his master’s sins?

Heavy, armored footsteps sound behind them. Shiro glances over his shoulder, sees Zarkon’s form in the doorway they’d come in from and his skin crawls. Keith touches him again, this time along his bare ribs. 

“Do whatever you need to,” Keith leans in to whisper to him, so close his lips nearly brush the side of his neck. “We’re just here to watch, but you don’t really have to. We just have to stay here until after this… this first thing. After that I’ll find a reason to leave early.” Keith’s worrying, but Shiro can’t quite decipher if the tinge beneath it is concern or fear. 

“Thank you,” Shiro murmurs. He only knows Keith heard him through the soft smile he gets for it. He doesn’t dare speak up anymore because Zarkon is a massive presence beside him, standing so tall and powerful Shiro feels like a child in comparison. Zarkon lifts a hand, and the already faltering crowd falls silent. 

“Tonight, our first order of business is ridding the Galra Empire of a traitor,” Zarkon’s voice booms, echoing out across the massive arena. The crowd is still, quiet enough that in the pause Shiro hears a second gate open, this time off to the right side of the ring. Four sentries armed with blasters march out and in the center of them, the all too familiar, broad frame of Vikit. His hands are bound behind his back and instead of the red armor Shiro typically saw him in he’s dressed in the same prisoner’s garb Shiro himself would wear before he was bound. 

“Vikit here, once one of my oldest commanders, has betrayed me. His empire. The Galra race as a whole, and thus jeopardized the stability we all enjoy in this universe,” Zarkon continues. Shiro watches as the sentries lead Vikit to the center of the ring, equidistance from all the pillars. From this distance Shiro can’t tell exactly, but it’s clear enough by how Vikit walks and the tired slump in his shoulders that he’s hurt. Probably a couple days of hard interrogations.

“And what for? What could an old commander have that’s worth giving up his career, his heritage, his life?” The sentries start backing away from Vikit, their weapons trained on him. Diada looks towards them, shuffles closer until his chain pulls tight. Shiro lets out a slow, shaking breath. He balls clammy fists on his knees, leans on them hard to still his trembling fingers. Tension hangs thick in the room as the crowd hangs onto Zarkon’s every word. Hungry for gossip and blood. 

“His son, Osin, has been found to be a rebel leader. I trusted Vikit enough to allow his blood to visit my fleet, and he repays me by slipping supplies to an enemy,” Zarkon pauses again, making a pleased rumble low in his chest. Diada keeps looking between the sentries and Vikit and Shiro can nearly see him working out how to get Vikit out of his mess despite it being so obviously impossible. “We’ve been lucky enough to catch Osin before he could slip away. He’ll break, and I promise you all this ring will see more justice soon. But for now... “ Zarkon again lifts his hand, motions with a single finger. The entire crowd feels like it’s moving to the edge of their seats.

“Kill him.” 

Several things happen all at once. The third gate leading into the ring, off to the left, creaks open. Vikit stiffens, takes a couple steps back. A chilling screech cuts over the shouts of thousands of spectators. Diada jerks around towards the sound before Shiro can see what’s making it. 

Diada looks at Vikit, twitches his head to the side. His mouth his moving as he barks an order, but it’s impossible to hear what he’s saying through the noise. Then Diada turns, grips his chain in both hands, takes a big step back from the pillar he’s attached to, and pulls with his entire body. 

Shiro watches the chain pull tight, strain. A bright green flash zips past Diada, kicking up puffs of sand. As it passes him, the chain goes slack, broken where it attached to the collar. He moves faster than Shiro can really believe his thick body can manage. He reaches out, grabs whatever monster’s come out of the gate by the tip of it’s tail and jerks it back so hard he stops it in its tracks. 

It looks, when it turns on Diada and screeches at him, like a feathered centipede. It’s long bodied, covered in short, bright green feathers, the belly scaled in red. It has the head of something like an eagle with huge black eyes set into the side of its head and a wicked, hooked beak. Its many legs end in insectoid points, stabbing deep into the sand and sending up flurries as it struggles.

Keith nudges his shoulder against Shiro’s side when the eagle whips around, sinks it’s beak into Diada’s shoulder and rips a chunk of flesh out in a spray of bright red blood. Shiro pushes back into his seat. His stomach turns and even though he knows for a fact that he’s too far away, the smell of coppery blood clings to the roof of his mouth. He rubs his fingers together, tugs at the end of his wrap where it’s knotted at his hip and tries to wipe the phantom tackiness off of them. 

If Diada’s in pain, he doesn’t show it. The eagle rips into him again, into his upper back, and blood runs down Diada’s spine and side in bright rivulets. But he holds firm while the eagle wriggles, snaps at his leg, then his arm.

It’s ripping him apart, but Diada doesn’t have a choice in the matter. He can’t fight back, because it takes both hands and all his strength to hold the eagle at bay. He can’t let it go, or it’ll hunt down Vikit, who’s still handcuffed, standing with his back tight against one of the pillars.

Shiro watches Diada wrench at the eagle’s tail, his jaw set and serious as it tries to rip out his eyes and slices open his cheek instead. Vikit always treated his slave poorly. He talked to him like he wasn’t a person. He forced him back into the ring over and over even after he’d been bound. He demeaned him. Abused him. And now he’s dragged Diada into his own crimes. Diada’s  _ dying  _ holding the monster back while Vikit hides from his own execution, and the unfairness of it all feels like it’s choking Shiro. 

“You don’t have to watch,” Keith says softly. Shiro swallows thickly and nearly gags when he tastes blood. He’s bitten his cheek too hard at some point. “Shiro,” Keith presses. Softly furred, pale fingers press at his own, slowly releasing Shiro’s grip on his knee and lacing their fingers together. Shiro can feel Keith’s discomfort when he digs his nails into the back of his hand, but he can’t stop himself, and Keith doesn’t complain. 

“He  _ hates  _ Vikit,” Shiro groans, his shoulders shaking. 

“I know,” Keith says. “It’s almost over.”

The eagle suddenly gives up on Diada. It whips away from him. Its whole body undulates, flicks and in the span of a second it’s twenty feet away and Diada’s left with nothing but two handfuls of shimmering green feathers. 

Diada sprints after it, but he’s lost blood while the eagle is still mostly fresh. There’s no way he can keep up with it. Shiro watches as the eagle whips around the pillar Vikit hides behind. It doesn’t even slow and ponder over him. It crouches, trills as Vikit tries to back away. Vikit hardly gets three steps before it lunges forward and sinks the hook of its beak into his throat. 

Vikit stumbles under the weight and as he falls onto his back, the eagle shakes him and blood sprays into the sand and up the side of the pillar. 

Vikit’s dead. His bond with Diada is broken. If Shiro would have guessed, he would say that Diada would calm down. He doesn’t have anyone to protect anymore.

But if anything, Diada’s tempered efforts devolve into an animalistic rage. He speeds up, pushes himself hard as he can with how much blood he’s lost. He bares long, sharp rows of teeth as he turns around the pillar. The eagle still has a mouthful of Vikit’s corpse and Diada doesn’t give it time to react. He shoves one hand into the its mouth, pries it off Vikit. He hooks his other hand in the top of its beak and before it can rear up out of his grip Diada wrenches its head in opposite directions. Its neck jerks at a sickening angle and it instantly goes limp.

He tosses the dead weight to the side. He glances at Vikit. He’s dead. Diada’s still tense, still bleeding, still keyed up even though both his master and the monster threatening him are dead. One of the sentries escorting Vikit out earlier readjusts its grip on it’s blaster and Diada’s head whip towards the motion. He bares his teeth again. He’s not done.

Shiro knows that feeling. The adrenaline. The burn of sand in open wounds. The weakness of blood loss and the heat of rage and that specific euphoric, animal triumph of killing something that pushes him beyond it. The riotous roar of the crowd calling to him. More. He can do more. If they want more, he can provide. He doesn’t care. There’s nothing else left for him to give. 

The sentry raises its weapon and shoots Diada between the eyes. 

Shiro knows, distantly, that he’s breathing too fast, too shallow. He’s gripping Keith’s hand too hard because his pain rings out in the back of his mind. He can’t do anything about it because he’s  _ not here.  _ He’s not here. He’s somewhere else. He’s not in the arena. He’s not looking looking down a blood soaked sand and gored bodies. He’s not being tugged out of his seat. He’s not feeling Keith’s panic clawing at the back of his mind. 

_ The weariness doesn’t start setting in until he’s well out of the ring. Usually by the time they hit the elevator his knees will start to shake. He’ll go cold and his stomach will turn as his heart fights, hard and fast, against too little blood, too little oxygen.  _

_ It never hurts that bad. Not anymore. The first few times a single cut would sting and plague him for days. Now, he thinks, as he watches his own blood congeal and stick to his top, he probably wouldn’t realize he was actually dying until he just didn’t wake up anymore.  _

_ It stops hurting, but he never gets used to it. He won’t let it. He  _ can’t  _ let the role of executioner get old. The instant he does, he loses the last bit of respect he has for the accused. He loses his humanity.  _

_ He says that but, as he watches blood slowly drip to the floor, he knows he won’t remember this later.  _

“Oh yeah? And what color were your sheets? Solid? Patterned?” 

Shiro’s staring at his shoes. There’s not blood there. Only the matte leather of his boots, the short blue carpet of Keith’s apartment. He’s in Keith’s apartment. Not in an elevator. The word ‘executioner’ settles like a stone in his chest. He glances up. At some point they’ve made it back, and Shiro’s shoved himself into a corner in the living room. Keith lingers a few feet away, out of arms reach. His lip is split.

“Black,” Shiro says. Somehow he knows they’re not talking about the sheets on his current bed in the office here. Those are white and rough. For awhile, Keith’s been asking him about his apartment on Earth. He knows that, but he doesn’t remember answering any of those questions. “They had white stars on them.” 

“You need more?” Keith asks after a little pause. His ears flick up from where he had been holding them back anxiously. Shiro looks past him towards the couch. Keith has tugged the coffee table perpendicular to one arm of the couch. A mess of blankets and pillows piled up in the floor in the space between. 

“No. I’m okay now,” Shiro says. His eyes wander back to Keith when the small Galra approaches him and starts trying undo the tight knotted mess of his wrap at his hip. Shiro doesn’t have the energy to stop him, much less to do it himself. He eyes the mark on Keith’s lip. It’s small, at the corner of his mouth. His lip is hardly swollen, but it’s definitely new. He hadn’t had that when they were at the arena. “What happened to your lip?”

“You didn’t like me pushing you into the apartment,” Keith says lightly. The knot comes undone and Keith simply lets the cloth fall where he stands. His binding recoils at that and it manifests as a aching throb in his chest, like his heart is being squeezed a little. Keith notices, grabs Shiro’s wrist and leads him gently towards the pile at the couch. “It was an accident. Don’t worry about it.” 

“I’m sorry,” Shiro sighs. Keith shakes his head, squeezes Shiro’s wrist. 

“You couldn’t help it,” Keith insists patiently. They circle around the couch and Keith motions towards the pile. It’s arranged like something that reminds him of a bird’s nest, blankets shoved higher up around the sides and the center lined with soft pillows. “In. You’re not the first freak out I’ve had to deal with either. Believe it or not, they gave me training for that.” 

Keith motions towards the space for Shiro in the little spot where the couch and coffee table meet. He steps in, lays down, and though he  _ barely  _ fits, it’s rather nice. Keith wanders off to this bedroom, already unclasping the collar of the light armor he’d been wearing out. 

“What is this?” he asks when Keith comes back a couple minutes later, dressed in pajamas. Keith steps in and starts fussing around the walls like he’s making sure they’re sturdy, then reaches up for Shiro’s blanket where it’s been tossed on the couch. 

“Later. Just try to rest for a minute,” Keith flicks the blanket over both of them. He scoots close, pinning Shiro between himself and the blankets padding the coffee table. Keith settles his arm between them, sighs softly when he’s settled. “We’ll be busy soon, so enjoy this while you can.”


	10. Take Off

The room is dark when he wakes up again. He’s weighed down with blankets, his face shoved into the rough fabric of one of the couch cushions Keith had tossed into the floor making this little pillow fort. He’s got his face tucked into the blankets and he only knows the television is on by the soft sound and the faint blue glow filtering in past the edge of the covers. He hasn’t slept this hard in a long while and the sensation of being well rested is almost strange. His body feels heavy and he’s at that perfect state of almost too warm where the last thing he wants to do is ever move again. 

He doesn’t so much see Keith as sense him there beside him. Something crinkles and Shiro manages to tip his head enough to look. Keith has a packet of what Shiro can best describe as cookies. He pulls one out, tips one ear towards Shiro before he turns and looks at him. 

“Do you remember anything Zarkon said earlier?” Keith asks. Shiro moves a little more, enough to uncover his face and tuck the blanket under his chin. 

“Something about a red lion and me piloting it, but on Earth, lions aren’t typically red, or something you can pilot, so I don’t really understand what it is or why it’s so important,” Shiro says. Keith narrows his eyes, but nudges the cookie against Shiro’s lips until he takes it. 

“I thought lions were just an Altean thing…” Keith says. He eats a cookie himself, then puts the packet onto the bare couch behind him. “Whatever. I wasn’t expecting you to keep up with him at the time, but I need you to be up to date when we meet with Thace and Ulaz this afternoon.” 

Shiro hums, pulls the rest of the cookie into his mouth with his tongue and chews it thoughtfully. Galra sweets always had this tang to them, but he was far from complaining about it. The red lion, Voltron, the fact that he’d apparently been groomed to pilot the thing all along, it… it probably should have bothered him more. But it  _ answered  _ things. He knows now why he was kept around as a gladiator, why he’d been subjected to the druid’s experiments. Why he lost his arm. 

“Well, the story of Voltron started about 10,000 years ago…” Keith starts. He reaches back, grabs another cookie, and bumps it to Shiro’s lips until he takes that one too. Shiro listens to Keith go on about a gigantic super weapon as he kicked the blankets down to his chest and snaps the cookie in half. 

He still didn’t know what he was doing here, or what exactly they expected him to do with this red lion, but no matter what, he knew he’d have Keith working with him. He wasn’t alone out here anymore.

* * *

 

“Shiro. Do you think you can do this?” Kolivan asks. He’s no more than a disembodied voice coming out of Keith’s datapad resting on the coffee table, but Shiro still has this sense that he really can’t tell Kolivan no. He sounds pretty much exactly like what Shiro would have expected from a rebel leader, deep and serious and leaving no room for disobedience. 

He doesn’t  _ know  _ if he can even pilot the red lion, much less maneuver it out from under the noses of Sendak’s likely bristling fleet. He  _ was  _ fighter pilot class but he’d only ever flown Earth ships. Nothing alien and never a  _ lion _ . But he looks towards the three Galra eyeing him up from the couch and in the second’s pause he knows he doesn’t have a choice. 

“Yes, I think I can,” Shiro says. Kolivan hums like he doesn’t quite believe him and Shiro faintly thinks that he’s glad that Kolivan is in some vague point in space away from him and he doesn’t have to face his surely intense stare head on. 

“See that you do,” Kolivan says. Goosebumps raise on Shiro’s skin, but Keith, oddly, smiles lightly. “I’m trusting you with a lot more than I would rather like to.” Shiro can’t help but think that he’ll probably never see his disappointed look. Either he succeeds in this, or he dies trying. Kolivan moves on, like Shiro is no long a newcomer to their inner workings. Like he’s just told Shiro to make sure and do his homework over the weekend. “Thace, you said Zarkon is sending you out to Sendak’s fleet as well. Do you think it means anything?” Kolivan asks. 

Now that he’s off the hook he watches the other three sitting on the couch from his place in the armchair. He’d been a bit surprised that he was even allowed to stay with them once the meeting started. 

Then Keith had called Kolivan and made introductions.

In hindsight, he’s not  _ terribly  _ surprised that Keith, along with Thace and Ulaz, are spies. There was the meetings he wasn’t allowed to sit in on. There was this certain difference between how Keith acted in private and how he talked to others in public. Not obvious. Shiro had just thought it was something like Keith not taking his place in the Galra Empire as seriously as he let on. Instead, he’s just a very, very good actor and Shiro probably never would have caught on if he didn’t spend every waking moment within sight of him. 

His binding tingles anxiously in the bad of his mind every time the word  _ spy  _ crosses his mind. He’s got to be more even more careful from now on. 

“I don’t know, but I don’t completely buy the excuse Zarkon gave me either,” Thace says, his ears pulled back slightly, tense. Shiro watches, but he feels slightly detached from the conversation. It’s all so much coming together in one sitting. The Blade of Marmora. The red lion. His new role in playing along in their plan to steal it and keep Voltron out of Zarkon’s hands. 

“It’s nonsense,” Ulaz growls. He’s been slightly irritated this entire meeting, shoving too close to Thace’s side and threading their fingers together. It’s the most affection Shiro’s ever seen between them. Thace hushes him. 

“Apparently, Sendak’s requested backup for getting this start system under control after he found the red lion. There’s still enough rebel activity there to trouble him, but I don’t buy it. Sendak wouldn’t request something like that unless it was dire. And besides that, Keith was running that project less than two months ago and he had things under control. Sendak is skeevy, sure, but he’s not so unskilled that things would fall apart like this.,” Thace explains. Ulaz’s brow furrows deeply and for a few seconds, Kolivan is silent as he thinks. 

“He might know something, because why take you away from the main fleet?” Kolivan asks.

“It’s because Zarkon knows Thace has a past with Sendak,” Ulaz cuts in. Even though Thace tucks his ears back and hushes Ulaz, Keith gives Shiro a long suffering look. Is Sendak a point of contention for them?

“Zarkon never said that. He explained it was because he could trust my judgement on the situation,” Thace says, glancing to Ulaz. “I think it’s because I’ve been on Prorok’s good side, actually.”

“Be careful and keep an eye on him, but I’m assuming you’re taking this as an opportunity to gather information for us?” Kolivan asks, then when Thace confirms. “Are you going as backup, Ulaz? Or are you staying with the main fleet.”

“He’s coming with us,” Keith answers for him. “I’ve already enlisted him as my medical lead. I need as many eyes as I can get watching after me while getting the red lion out.”

“Be careful, but don’t linger,” Kolivan warns. “The longer the three of you are around and working together, I worry it’ll be easier to spot you. You can’t afford to fail on this. If we have even one lion, Zarkon can never have Voltron. This is our most important task in millenia.”

* * *

 

The next week or so is a rush of errands. They pick up his travel suit from Wess. They go to offices all around the ship to ask after as many crew members as Keith could request, Shiro wondering all the while just how many of them were members of the Blade. Keith stays up late doing paperwork for temporary transfers and supplies. 

Every night, Shiro stays up on the couch and watches him bent over the dining room table. The vast majority is forms, but Shiro knows that he’s hardly thinking about that. He’s thinking more about the red lion. About getting Shiro into it. He’s talking about flight patterns and open space maneuvers under his breath. He’s reciting numbers to himself. The numbers of ships and troops Sendak has at his disposal. Ships and troops he had been in charge of not two months ago. No notes. Keith doesn’t write any of it down. Just his memories and an imagined series of events to prepare himself. 

Shiro tries to imagine flying the red lion himself. The cockpit of the Kerberos shuttle springs into his mind instead, so clear and colorful it catches him off guard. He watches Keith and thinks about Matt and Sam Holt for the first time in weeks. 

They go to the hangar the night before they leave. He’s never seen a small Galra craft before. They look slim and gangly, all sharp fins and harsh lines and looking too much like thick fish hooks to really make him comfortable. They’re sleeping here for a few hours before Keith has to get up and oversee takeoff. 

They’re leaving tomorrow, but only in the barest sense. Their bags are already packed beside them, ready to toss onto the ship in the lull before supplies and crew start showing up in a manner of hours. Keith has already gutted his apartment again. All the food tossed out, sheets pulled off the bed and washed. The lockbox Keith had kept hidden in his desk is now tucked away into the deepest corner of his luggage, the first thing Keith had plucked up before even his spare suit or his toothbrush despite the fact that Shiro had never seen him acknowledge its existence before then. 

Shiro’s luggage in comparison is miniscule. A little tote and his blanket folded loosely overtop. Looking at it now reminds him of the long car trips when he would go camping with his father as a kid. Of pulling down the back seat of the sedan and pulling his blanket out of the trunk to nap in it while he listened to his dad hum along to the radio. 

Weariness lingers in the corners of Shiro’s eyes, but Keith seems even worse off than he is. He’s been quiet all day, but Shiro’s binding doesn’t give him any more of a clue about his state of mind than a vague sense of sadness that Shiro can’t quite pin down to pursue. It’s been making him homesick.

“How good of a pilot were you? On Earth.” Keith asks as they near the ship. The door is open low in the belly of the ship and Keith leads him to the foot of a long line of stairs going up into the darkness inside the craft. Keith starts ahead of him, but when Shiro tightens his grip on the railing he remembers Shiro’s need to check an unfamiliar area first and backs away. 

“I was good enough to be chosen for the Kerberos mission,” Shiro says. Keith hums behind him and when Shiro glances over his shoulder near the top of the stairs Keith’s ear is twitching in confusion. “I was one of the first humans to go to the edge of my solar system,” Shiro says. He pokes his head inside the ship, glances around, but he knows already that there’s nobody here. “Before I was taken captive, anyways.” 

“You pick things up quickly then?” Keith asks. He points towards the back of the ship and Shiro leads the way while they worm through the thin, tall hallways towards the sleeping quarters. 

“If you’re asking me if I can hop into a ship and just take off, I doubt it.  My prosthetic won’t work on anything that’s locked,” Shiro says. “I’ve only been able to open the doors in your apartment.”  Keith stops him from walking further down the hall with a hand on the inside of his elbow. 

Keith opens the door and it leads to a tiny cabin. There’s two bunks set into the wall on top of each other and no furniture besides.There’s only enough space for their luggage and a bit of walking room, but that’s it.  Shiro wonders why Keith, the ship’s commander, doesn’t have a bigger room, then realizes it’s probably either because of having to account for him, or there simply isn’t a bigger room on a ship this size. 

Keith sets his suitcase down in the corner, looks at the bunks, and Shiro motions towards the bottom one when he imagines Keith falling out of the top and cracking his head open on the off chance they somehow find turbulence in the middle of space. Keith gives in without a fight and stretches out in the bottom bunk with a sigh. 

“I know that. I’m just wondering how easy it’ll be for you to get away from, oh, more than a hundred fighter ships on your first time flying,” Keith says. Shiro watches him, frowning. He still has this lingering sadness around him, an aimless ache that Shiro feels beneath his ribs that squirms in a way he can’t quite name. 

“Are you okay?” Shiro asks. Keith’s ear flicks and when he’s quiet for a second Shiro thinks it means Keith is ignoring him. “Don’t worry so much. I’m in this with you,” Shiro says. He pads over to the bunk, sits on it by Keith’s knees. Keith doesn’t look at him and instead stares intently at the underside of the bunk above him. “We’ll get through it so just get me to the lion. We’ll get out of here, and you can go home.” 

Keith’s mouth twists into a vague frown and for a second he looks like there’s almost a kind of grief going through him. The sadness in Shiro’s chest wrenches, then relaxes again until he almost can’t feel it.

“Yeah. I know.”

* * *

 

There was something romantic about interstellar space. Their ship, decently sized when given a comparison, feels little more than a mote of dust floating in the sea of space and time. He sinks into his chair and looks out through the window into the inky blackness surrounding them, lit only by the tiny dim pinpricks of stars. Nothing else, and if he concentrated he could nearly fool himself into thinking he was back in one of the massive spaceflight simulators of his youth. 

God, when was the last time he’d been one of those? He twists a length of soft orange cloth between his fingers. The last time he’d even been around the main fleet? He slips the fabric over his fingers, sinks in claws in until they poke through and start pulling little holes through it. It’s been years since he’d set off on his own. Since he tired of lingering as this short, scrawny thing in his father’s shadow. 

Since he’d made it his job to hunt rebels for the Galra Empire. 

But the video feed still paused on his console changes everything. He growls, twists the cloth more. If it had been anyone else, it wouldn’t have mattered. His father can take care of rebels and traitors perfectly well all on his own. But this one fucking idiot’s brought on more trouble than he probably realizes. 

The door whooshes open behind him and he knows it’s Vesin just from the cadence of his steps. Lotor pulls his eyes off the screen and the image of bloody sand to look at his guard over his shoulder. 

He’s always thought Vesin looked a lot like his father and watching the man’s execution brings that feeling back tenfold. Tall, dark, broad shouldered to the point that he makes the little trophy room they’re in feel smaller just by standing in it. Vesin’s a bit older than him and he’s let his hair grow just long enough that he’s had to start pushing it back out of his face, but Lotor hasn’t decided yet if he wants to tell him to cut it or not. How the hell he’s managed to keep all his scars off his face is beyond Lotor, but well, it’s not like his strong feature would be totally ruined by a few. 

Even though he has Lotor’s attention, Vesin remains quiet. He looking at some of their trophies. Masks, brooches, strips of fabric in a rainbow of colors.

“Your father’s dead,” Lotor says. He leans back in his seat, tosses one leg over the other and waves the bit of orange cloth in his hand. Vesin glances towards him. There’s a handful of orange strips looped around the bar holding the rest. Between the two of them they had rooted out a small handful of that particular group. Vesin cradles the ends of them in his fingers, inspects it. 

“Osin’s a rebel too,” he says. “I also learned that this morning.” He’s got this growl in his voice that Lotor might have been a little scared of if Vesin wasn’t absolutely sworn to him. But he is, and instead Lotor finds his ire slightly amusing. He rests his elbow on the arm of his chair as Vesin grips the orange cloth tight in his fist. 

“Your binding is the only thing keeping my father from coming after you too,” Lotor hums. Vesin gives him a tired look, but his fist is still tight around the fabric, all his anger kept in his left hand. He wants to rip it down, maybe use the pole to put a couple dents in the wall, but Lotor knows he won’t because he’s sitting too close to him. 

“Either that or he springs a trap on both of us the instant we get within shooting range of the main fleet,” Vesin says. Lotor can only shrug; he wouldn’t put it past Zarkon. Vesin continues. “Do you know where did they decide to put Osin after interrogation?” 

“District 39,” Lotor says. “I think it’s some kind of research facility so at least we know they didn’t wipe his mind.” Vesin doesn’t bite at his playful tone, but rather scowls and pulls on the cloth firmly, enough to make the bar creak, but nothing more. 

“Let’s pay a visit to my little brother then. It’s about time I caught up with him.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to ask me questions about what's going on because I'm not entirely sure if everything's tied up as neatly as it should be but honestly I wrote the first half of this chapter like four times and I'm basically giving up on rehashing this one little bit of plotline by now.


	11. Catching Up With Old Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus begins another round of drama.

As they near the end of their warp, Keith glances over and sees that Shiro's not holding onto anything. 

"We're here," he warns. Shiro glances over to him and oh, kriest, he's grinning like a kid. Keith's heart warms because he's never seen Shiro so genuinely pleased. But the past two days has been so obviously mind blowing for Shiro. He's never traveled this fast. He's never been on the bridge of an alien ship. He never runs out of questions. What's this technology? How fast are we going? Faster than the speed of light? Giving Shiro a little more slack on his leash seems to have brought forth even more of the curiosity that lead to him leaving his home planet in the first place. 

Then the ship winds down out of warp speed and Shiro nearly smashes his teeth into the console.

Keith's own arms ache from how hard he's has to push to keep upright. Shiro catches himself at the last second so hard his prosthetic creaks. Someone barks laughter, but Shiro recovers well enough that he can pretend he doesn't hear it. Instead, he mentions something about seatbelts and why they don't have any. He pointed ignores Keith when he points to the back wall covered in safety straps.

Shiro looks out across the bridge and out the front windows as the ship maneuvers closer. It certainly doesn't look like much. His, or rather Sendak's, fleet is nothing but some vague splotches against the darkness of deep space, lit up only by the red dwarf star. Though he can't see them from this angle, Keith knows perfectly well that the three planets of the Q7V system are tightly crammed together close to the star, like they're huddling around a small source of heat. 

Q7V-3 was designated to be the trading hub. It was dry and arid, making construction easy. It's place furthest out from the sun meant its surface was the most bearably cool for colonizing, and none of the other planets would get in the way of ships coming from outside of the solar system. 

Q7V-2 is obviously bright green and lush even from this far out. Lots of water and a crust of porous rock led to a complex mix of vegetation overtop extensive cave systems. Keith wouldn't have expected the red lion to hide itself somewhere actually habitable, but the red lion was also a ten thousand year old superweapon. There was no telling what it was thinking. 

Shiro holds onto the console for a little longer even after Keith lets go. Keith nods to one of the pilots, indicating they should start approach to Sendak's vessel. They start to turn, push forward into the solar system, and some bright smear appears near the star. Shiro perks up immediately and points. 

"Looks like the star finally caught one of his own planets?" Shiro says, but he puts this tone in it like he's not quite sure. Keith licks his lips and nods curtly. Nausea turns in his gut. Shiro picks up on it, because he starts looking a little unsure of himself and stealing glances at Keith like he's going to see something telling out of the corner of his eye. "I didn't realize they would break apart like that so brightly though." Shiro looks at him again and against his will, Keith's ears pull back a little and betray his nerves. "How long does it take to look like that? I…we did a lot of calculations on Earth, but no one's ever actually seen something like that before."

"I don’t know," Keith says shortly, and even though he sees Shiro shifting out of the corner of his eye and he  _ knows _ Shiro doesn't believe him, Shiro doesn't press the issue. Keith does know the answer, but he's not going to divulge it. A planet breaks apart and streaks like that around the star as the star pulls it into itself about four months after it's already been crumpled to smithereens by an ion cannon. 

But Shiro wouldn't understand that, and Keith is all too happy for the ship to turn and the planet's remains to move off out of sight towards the side of the ship. If he doesn't have to look at it, then he can focus on not thinking about it either.

* * *

 

"Shiro, you don't have to wear your helmet right now," Ulaz says patiently as they, along with Keith and Thace, gather near the airlock. They've pulled the ship up alongside Sendak's, neither ship having a hangar big enough to dock the other. The temporary walkway has already been extended and locked in place with a shuddering hiss so loud it vibrates the ship. 

Shiro's dressed in the sleek, black suit Keith had had made for him back in the main fleet. It hugs his skin, the thick material filling him out a little and Shiro had, when he'd first worn it, marveled at how easily he could move around in it. Apparently human spacesuits were quite a bit clunkier. 

But the suit he wears now betrays his movements easily, and Keith can tell in the way he shifts the weight of his helmet from hand to hand that he's nervous. He doesn't even  _ have  _ to wear the suit if he didn't want to. The walkway is already secure and pressurized, but Shiro eyes the door warily.

"You're fine, Shiro." Keith huffs. He spreads his hands on the lock and it beeps. Shiro flinches, glances between Keith and the slowly opening door and finally shoves his nerves down as his binding takes over. He pushes through the door first, his helmet still hanging from his fingers. He looks around the dark, accordioned walls, his footsteps thudding deeply on the thin floors. 

He doesn't even seem to remember that he's forgotten his helmet (though whether that's because he's in a rush or if he's taken Keith for his word is impossible to tell) until Keith's catching up with him nearly ten feet into the walkway and though he tries vainly to hide his sheepishness, Keith grins as he passes him by. "Told you," Keith says. 

"I believed you," Shiro rebuffs. He keeps pace so he remains a few steps ahead of Keith and the others. "Like getting on an airplane." Keith can nearly see his mind working as the airlock leading into Sendak's ship hisses open and they near the end of the walkway. 

"What's Sendak like?" Shiro asks. He's only asked that two or three times since they left the main fleet, and even though Keith knows it's just his binding nagging at him for information on a new and unknown place, Keith had always given him the same answer. 

"You'll see," Keith says. All four of them step into the airlock. The outer door closes behind them. Shiro will see what Sendak is like just the same way as he will himself. Last time he had seen Sendak had been months ago. When he'd left him, Sendak had not been someone he could count on to have his back in every decision, but Keith had at least trusted him enough to pull his weight in a fight and do his job well enough for Keith to leave him in charge with little worry when he was called back to the main fleet. 

And do his job he had. He'd done it so well he'd found the red lion under his nose and picked up Keith's place as commander permanently. It was shameful. Something like the red lion. He should have picked up on that. Should have picked it up and gotten it himself. He should have stolen the fucking thing months ago and saved himself all the trouble of going back to the main fleet, dealing with Vikit, saving Shiro the pain of binding-

Shiro's eyes seem to burn the tips of his ears, and soft fingers press to the middle of his spine, just under his chest piece. Keith glances at Shiro out of the corner of his eye and he wonders how much of that filtered through his binding. 

After all, if Keith had found and stolen the red lion before Sendak had had a chance to report it to Zarkon behind his back, Shiro would still be a gladiator. Still penned up in one of those dark, barren rooms when he wasn't tossed into the Arena and made to fight tooth and nail for his life. 

Shiro's fingers tighten a little against his back, linger, then the inner door is opening into Sendak's ship and Shiro lets his hand drop. "I'll eye him up myself. Honestly I'm just glad to finally be somewhere different," Shiro says, but his tone is a bit too bright for the way his eyes sharpen and pin down the smaller Galra that steps up to greet him. "Who are you?" he asks.

"Haxus," Keith answers for him. Haxus comes up short, stares at Shiro, his mouth slightly open right where the human had interrupted him mid introduction. Keith bites the inside of his cheek to kill the urge to let the corner of his mouth lift at Haxus's indignant look and his own surprise. Shiro's never been that forward before. Maybe it’s Keith’s own irritation affecting Shiro’s nerves. Keith reaches out and grips Shiro's arm a little firmer than friendly, a silent reminder to behave, and nods politely towards Haxus. "It's nice to see you again..." he lets the pause hang a beat too long. "Lieutenant, Haxus?" 

"Yes, Lieutenant," Haxes says, then nods to each of them in turn. Whatever attention he denies Shiro, he focuses firmly on Thace. Which, if he were looking for any kind of ire, Keith thinks that Thace is the last person he'd get it from. He recovers his composure quickly, and motions further down the hall. "Was the trip well?" and then before any of them can answer, he's already moving down the hall. "Sendak wishes to meet with you on the bridge."

The first sensation rising in his chest when Keith sees Sendak in his former place on this ship's bridge is that he's overstepping his bounds. Sendak doesn't belong in that place in the center of the bridge, his place is off to the left. Haxus is moving to that place though, looking for all the world that he's pleased to be finished with his fetching job. 

Sendak turns to see them as they come into the room, and he doesn't move from his place, and Keith reminds himself that that's where Sendak belongs now. Through somewhat underhanded means, yes, but honestly, what did he care? 

Except he does, because at some point he's let Sendak believe that the repercussions for going behind his back is worth the risk. And just the thought of anything behind his back as a Blade makes his skin crawl. 

And what had he done, really, to discourage the backstabbing? He's been too soft.

That icky feeling must filter through to Shiro because Shiro stiffens, edges in closer to Keith's side to make a barrier between himself and Sendak. Sendak notices, and he grins. He hardly looks at Keith, gives Shiro a look like he can barely be bothered with him, and turns onto Thace instead. 

"It's been awhile," Sendak says. His voice drops, softens around the edges into something Keith has never heard him use with anyone before. Thace is still several steps behind both himself and Shiro, but Sendak passes by them. Thace stiffens. His expression shifts, goes a little flatter and stern. The expression he gets when he's tamping his thoughts down and hiding them. 

If Sendak notices, and he might, he doesn't respond to it. He still pushes close and bumps into Thace's side, looping his natural arm around his waist. A few things happen all at once. Ulaz's mouth betrays his disapproval. Sendak looks Ulaz full in the face. Sendak rubs his cheek between Thace's ears. Thace loses his nerve. His fingers twitch, thinking of his claws, but then he pushes his palm under Sendak's chin and gently pushes the Alpha off of him. 

"It has," Thace says diplomatically. Sendak lets go of him on his own, and nods to Ulaz. Ulaz, less talented at hiding his feelings, returns the gesture rather aggressively. Thace continues. "But Zarkon didn't give me this assignment to fraternize. You said something about needing back up." 

Sendak frowns deeply. He moves back towards the main console and motions for them all to follow. "I hate to request backup for something like rebels, but I'm at the end of my patience with them." He types something into the console and a holographic map of the system comes to life a few feet in front of them. The star is signified with a symbol off the side, as the map is focused on both planets two and three. 

"They're like insects. No matter how I hunt for them and how many I take out, more always pop up." Another keystroke and hundreds of little red dots bloom all over both planets, with even more spread out in the space between them, and some trailing towards the remains of the first planet orbiting so close to the sun. Sendak motions irritably towards the map. "Look at this! There's no reason to it. We've already searched the places where sightings are more clustered. Nothing. We tried to find clues to their ships, or how they dress. Nothing! There's no telling when they'll hit, what kind of ships they use, what they're after, how many will show up at once." 

"There's no sense to it at all?" Thace asks. "Any idea what they're after? When did this start?"

"There was some rebel activity before I left," Keith says. He points to a small cluster of points on the third, arid planet where he knows the new trading post is located. "But it was contained around here, and while they were slippery, they never caused enough trouble to really worry us. By far, they suffered more casualties than they caused, but," he frowns at the map. "This is a  _ lot  _ more since I left." One of Sendak's ears flick irritably. 

"It picked up only a week or so after you left, and they haven't let up since-"

"Maybe they thought they didn't have much to worry about since the commander left?" Ulaz asks. Shiro bites his lip, but to Sendak's credit, he doesn't bite. 

"I don't know what the hell they're after," Sendak growls. "They're not aiming to kill, only to destroy as much of my supplies as they can." A deep breath. "We've had to rebuild the incoming hangar on that damn trading post twice! Every time we've made an effort to do  _ anything _ at least one of their ships will inevitably show up. If I had more men to spare, I could narrow down where they're holed up and flush them out."

"Have you been keeping any records? I'd be interested in looking it over. Maybe I can find a clue as an outsider," Thace suggests. Sendak nods, and Keith cuts in. 

"What about the red lion? I'm assuming these rebels are part of the reason you haven't been able to get your hands on it," Keith says. 

"That and I can't figure out where the damn thing went," Sendak growls. He taps a few keys and the map zooms in on Q7V-2 and a spot far into the southern hemisphere, on an island in a tiny sea. "It's somewhere here. The cave is there, the markings are there. We've talked to the locals living in every city on the shore and they confirmed it through their history and myths. It  _ is _ there. The stubborn thing just won't show itself." 

It  _ is _ there. It is. The red lion is no more than an hour's flight and a short jog. Keith does his best not to meet eyes with Shiro, and thankfully, Shiro doesn't speak up himself. Drop down to the surface. Hit the cave. Pick up the lion and they're gone. Years of undercover work and in the end, Zarkon had made the mistake of handing over the red lion's pilot to a spy.

It almost feels like cheating.

* * *

 

"What do you mean you're going with us?" Keith asks. It's nearly a full six hours later and Keith's mind feels like it's slipping into a fog spending all afternoon catching up on the situation on Sendak's side. He's back in the airlock with only Shiro, since Thace and Ulaz are staying on Sendak's ship to look into the rebel business.

"Exactly what it sounds like. I'm taking myself and a few of my own men down to the surface with you. Why would I stay up here and twiddle my fucking thumbs while you have your slave pick up a super weapon?" Sendak asks. Shiro bristles and sets a hand on Keith's hip as he herds him behind his back. As much as he hates Sendak seeing him being pushed around by a human not much bigger than himself, he's not willing to fight Shiro on it at the moment. Sendak crowds the scant space in the airlock's doorway and surely, the aggressive way Sendak speaks to him sets off a myriad alarms in Shiro's mind. 

But he thinks he'll let Sendak figure that out for himself.

Keith lifts his hands submissively. "Alright. Whatever. I get it. You want to see the lion." He reaches over to the wall and sets his hand in the lock mechanism. "Be my guest. I'm looking forward to seeing how your fluffy ass handles the humidity anyways." 

"Shut the hell up, Keith," Sendak growls, moving back a step at the airlock's inner door slowly closes in between them. "We're going down at 0900 hours." Keith nods to show he hears just as the doors lock shut. Sendak stalks off down the hall and Keith leads the way across the walkway leading to his own ship. He gets halfway before his irritation gets to him. 

"Dammit!" he hisses. Shiro, who had been lagging behind a couple of steps, quickly closes the space between them. "That stupid-! Shit!" 

"What's wrong?" Shiro asks. His hand once more settles on Keith to steady him, this time at his shoulder, but Keith shrugs it off. "I'm not that surprised he's coming with us. I thought this lion was pretty important." 

"It's  _ very _ important, and that's why we need to keep it as far away from Sendak as we can. Hearing about those rebels, I was hoping he would be distracted enough between them and Thace to not insist on going down himself. Haxus, sure, I can handle that little shit. But let either one of them too close they'll make getting out of here a lot harder than it needs to be." He pauses at the end of the walkway while the outer door on his own ship finishes opening. "And worse comes to worse, you've probably seen that Sendak would be a little harder to handle."

"That's an ugly arm he's got," Shiro sighs, then, as they step into the airlock. "You think it'll come to that?"

"No, but it never hurts to assume that it's more likely than you think." 


	12. Exit Strategy

He probably looks like an overexcited tourist with the way he's trying to repress the smile on his face. Planetside. That means grass, sunshine, fresh (hopefully breathable) air. Of course, it wasn't Earth. Nothing would ever replace Earth. But it wasn't a cramped, dim, artificial gravity and scrubbed, recycled air either. 

But his excitement is dampened somewhat by what he now recognizes as the emotions Keith is sending through their bond. Keith is all keyed up nerves and impatience, and Shiro can see it in the tightness of Keith's shoulders, the way he holds himself just a little bit taller, though his chin is dipped down slightly. Shiro knows that if they were alone and everyone wasn't looking at Keith as the leader, he would have liked to curl up alone somewhere. 

Underneath the nerves though, is something different. Something aching and something that, at first, Shiro had mistaken for his own feelings. It's something much akin to the way Shiro's heart swells eagerly when their smaller ship dips down and starts making the sharp descent towards the surface. When the black skyscape is pushed away by a maze of bright blue waters and deep, deep greens of foliage. 

"Has it been long since you've been to land?" Shiro asks. Keith flinches lightly, just a little jerk in one of his ears as he's pulled from this thoughts. His brow furrows, like he doesn't quite understand what Shiro's getting at. Shiro motions first to Keith, then to his own chest. Their binding. 

"I-I don't like going to the surface much," Keith says. His first word catches a little and Shiro thinks that's a little weird considering he had asked Keith something that, he thought, was rather tame. "When you're on a ship most of the time, weather seems troublesome whenever you have to deal with it." Keith explains. But that's not what he's thinking about at all, Shiro knows it in the way Keith finally gives in and crosses his arms across his stomach. The tight feeling in Keith's chest is gone, or hidden under everything else. "I think we have more important issues ahead of us anyways. We're not going to be down there long enough to get anything more than a taste."

* * *

 

Nearly half an hour later, the ship slows, then eases to the ground with a hollow thump. Someone opens the hatch in the side of the ship, sunlight spills into the hall and Shiro daydreams of dragging Keith outdoors with him (because his binding will never, ever let him fully stray from Keith's side. He can only go where Keith is willing to follow him). Before he can even fake taking a step towards the door, Keith circles his fingers around his wrist. 

"Listen," Keith says quietly. He waves out the two pilots who stand and make their way out of cockpit, and then Keith and Shiro are alone while everyone else starts pulling supplies out of storage. "Let's go over our plan, okay?" 

"We make camp," Shiro starts. They'd already been over this several times the night before, and again this morning before they'd even set out. "We pack whatever we can't afford to leave behind. Then we meet Sendak this afternoon."

"What time?"

"13:30," Shiro repeats easily. In about four hours. "He's going to lead us to the Red Lion. I get in, and then..." 

"It'll tell you what to do. It doesn't matter if you've never seen one of these lions before. None of us really have. But it can tell you how to pilot it. If I'm there, we just take off. If I can't get in without Sendak following me, then you know where to meet me, right?" Keith says. 

Shiro deflates with a weak sound. "That hook on the southern tip of the island. I wait twelve hours. Check for you, then if you're not there..." 

"Then you go home, hide the lion, and pretend none of this ever happened. No one's expecting you to form Voltron. Just keeping it out of Zarkon's hands is enough." 

Never mind that he'd probably go mad if anything happened to Keith. Never mind that he didn't know where he would hide something like a gigantic lion besides sinking the damn thing to the bottom of the Pacific and hoping no one picked it up on sonar or some James Cameron wannabe stumbled upon it.

He knew that, more likely than not, if Keith died, odds were that he would die right along with him.

Keith sighs, squeezes Shiro's wrist gently while Shiro takes a slow, deep breath. "That's just the worst case scenario," Shiro reminds himself, and Keith nods in agreement. "Best case, you can slip in around Sendak and we can just go..." 

"Home," Keith says. He lets go of Shiro's wrist, but doesn't pull away. "I'll show you where I came from, but before that, we have to get the lion, and if we have to play some of it by ear, well, then, I'll trust you with it." 

Keith levels this soft, open look on him and Shiro feels the weight of what he's just said. This is a spy, going into a do or die recovery mission, handing over his trust to someone he's been forcefully attached to only a few months ago. 

"I'll take care of you," Shiro murmurs. The feeling that filters in through his bond with Keith is strange. Light, tingly, but with a slightly sharp edge of fear in it. But it's almost entirely eclipsed with the warm, almost pillowy feeling of intense, genuine trust. 

"I know you will," Keith says. He flicks his ear, switching mental channels, and he's back to the harder version of Keith he shows to everyone else. He heaves an unenthusiastic sigh. "Okay then, let's go out and deal with that damn humidity. If we push Sendak hard enough, I wonder if we can make him faint under that fur of his."

* * *

 

Camp turns out to be a tightly bunched gathering a large, black tents built up around the edge of the large clearing where their ship had landed. Shiro follows Keith down the ramp off the ship to the ground and it hits him harder than he had really expected it to. 

Sunshine warms his skin. For the first few seconds, it feels like it will burn, but by the time Shiro runs his hands over his face and through his hair, the sensation settles into something pleasant. Sunlight. Real sunlight. Not the artificial coldness of overhead lights on the ships he's been trapped in for more than a year.  

The scuff of thick, black sandy soil under his feet is real too. As well as the rustling sound of of a soft breeze through the foliage, vibrant and lively and smelling of… plant life. Flowers and grass, still exotic, but close enough. Beneath it all is the smell of sea salt and the quiet roar of waves. 

Keith glances at him over his shoulder as he leads the way further into camp, towards a smaller tent near the edge of the clearing. "You're okay? You look kind of pale," Keith asks. He frowns deeply when Shiro laughs at his questions. 

"It's probably been more than a year and a half since I've been 'outside'," Shiro says. "I'm probably more washed out than Gollum." Keith's frown only intensifies, his ears twitching in his confusion. 

"Gollum..." Keith starts. 

"Something from Earth. Nevermind," Shiro says, then motions to Keith's face. "You're not nearly as pale as I thought you were." Natural sunlight has a way of showing someone's true colors. And in Keith's case, it's rather literal. His lavender color is not any darker than Shiro had thought, but it's just more vibrant, and the separation between the purple and the soft red that edges his ears isn't as well defined. "It's pretty." Keith tugs his ears back a little. "I uh- your ears. Sorry. I just like it. The sun's good to you."  

"Wow," Keith sighs "You  _ really _ must have been a stud on Earth. How did they ever bear sending you off?" The sentries at their tent finish putting up the final touches as they approach. All five of them salute them with robotic precision, then move on to the next tent maybe thirty feet further down the edge of he clearing. 

As soon as they leave, Shiro grabs the pole at the nearest corner and shakes it. The whole tent jiggles, but it's sturdy, despite the sandy soil it's set upon. Safe enough. Even as he goes about double checking the rest of the tent (while Keith waits patiently for him to finish) Shiro wonders if Keith would believe him if he admitted he'd only had the one girlfriend in high school in all his time on Earth. 

He ultimately decides against saying anything, because no doubt he'd have to explain to Keith what exactly a 'nerd' was and how that affected his position on the human dating scene despite his appearances and really, he that's not something he's eager to get into. He pokes his head into the tent instead. 

It's a decent size, considering. The floor is the same thin material as the walls and roof, and from the inside, Shiro can see that the material is thin enough to let enough of the natural sunlight in to easily see inside. It must cut out most of the heat though, because the inside of the tent is already noticeably cooler than outside. It's decorated simply. There's a single table, a large chest with their belongings resting on top, and against one wall... 

A single, simple bed. 

It's not something Shiro had actively thought about, but seeing it now, he's not at all surprised to know that they wouldn't accomodate him. He was only a slave still, only barely better than the prisoner he had been. 

But what did it matter? He wouldn't be here tonight anyways. 

"Am I allowed to come in yet?" Keith asks. Shiro answers by stepping in ahead of him and holding the flap door open for him. Keith glances around, doesn't seem bothered in the least by what he finds inside and instead goes to the chest to inspect their bags. Out of his own suitcase, he pulls out a small, light bag about the size of a backpack. 

"This is our day pack, but we're not coming back for the rest of this. Pick whatever you can't live without and leave the rest of it," Keith says, giving him a knowing look. Shiro only feels a little bad when he only packs a change of clothes. Keith packs one as well, but out of the bottom of his pack, his pulls out two interesting things. 

The first is that lockbox Shiro had first seen in Keith's desk back when he was only very recently been bound. Keith, as far as he knew, had never touched it until they were packing to leave the main fleet. Right now, as he holds the clipboard sized box in his hands, is only the second time Shiro has ever seen him with it. 

"What is that? Can I ask?" Shiro says as Keith pulls Shiro's shirt out of their day bag and wraps the box carefully with it. He tugs it, wrinkles the cloth in such a way that the shape is obscured before he puts it back in the bag, settled at the very bottom. On top of it he hides it further with some of his own clothes.

"It's just..." Keith starts, so long after Shiro asked that he was starting to think that Keith would just ignore his question. "It's a family heirloom. Just something personal." 

Before Shiro can ask further, Keith pulls out the black sword from the bottom of his pack. Shiro remembers him calling this a family heirloom as well, and it suddenly clicks for him. The box is probably some kind of sensitive intel Keith has gathered on behalf of the Blade of Marmora. Keith holds the sword in both hands, almost gently cradling the weapon. It's a beautiful, blackish metal that seems to absorb light and reemit it in a thin purple stripe. 

Keith weighs it in his hands, glances to Shiro, then he squeezes the hilt and the whole thing is engulfed in bright light. For a heartbeat Shiro thinks that something is very, catatrophically wrong, but before he can react, much less fully process what's going on, the light dims, the sword is gone, and Keith is left holding a small dagger instead. 

"This goes with you," Keith says. He pulls a length of cloth from his bag and wraps it tighty arond the hilt, obscuring the symbol. Shiro's still trying to figure out how Keith has made a weapon shrink down to a fourth of its earlier size, but Keith even has a sheathe for it that he pulls out of his pack and tucks the blade into. "I don't let anyone see its dormant form, so just keep it on you somewhere safe."

"I don't know how to use it," Shiro says. And it's not his. And it's a tool identifying him as a spy. And without the blade, Keith is left with only one of the military issued swords to protect himself. 

"You don't have to. Just keep it with you and don't lose it. No matter what, you're going to be in the red lion. It's fast, and smart, so even if you choke a little you should be able to escape." Shiro doesn't buy it. 

"But-" Keith shoves it towards Shiro so sharply he bumps him in the chest with the flat side. 

"No matter what, you get in the red lion. You get out of here. If I can't come with you, and something happens to me, this sword will give away not only the fact that I'm a spy, but it jeopardizes all the other spies in the empire with me. It puts our entire resistance at risk. You take this, and you keep it out of the Empire's hands. Just like you're keeping the red lion out of their hands. You don't have to do anything different. Just keep it with you," Keith growls. Then almost immediately, he softens. Shiro takes the dagger from him and while he tucks it into the back of his belt he feels something almost akin to pity coming off of Keith. 

"I don't like this," Shiro sighs. 

"Well, I'm not looking forward to it either, so I guess where both in the same ship on that," Keith hums. He crosses his arms, taps his claws along his elbow, a little show of anxiety that he masks well on his face. "We'll be okay. To be honest, I'm looking forward to going home." 

Shiro almost says 'me too', but remembers that going back to Earth right now is an absolute worst case scenario.

* * *

 

After going over their plan one last time, Keith indulges Shiro in a couple hours of sunshine. Keith isn't terribly happy about it, clearly. The air here is hot and humid and even though Shiro is quickly sweating more than he has in months, it's more refreshing than tiresome. 

Keith tags along behind him as he pokes around and tries to help set up the rest of camp, but the sentries won't have anything to do with him, and most of the other Galra in camp belong to Sendak, and so he doesn't want to stray too close to them. Shiro simply winds up switching between wandering a short ways into the thick jungle around the camp and lounging in the heat. 

"You got awfully quiet all the sudden," Keith tells him as the time for their little hike draws near. They're both sitting on a storage crate in the middle of camp. Their shared bag rests in the sandy soil between Keith's knees. He's not sweating like Shiro is, instead looking much the same as he always does. Shiro can only tell he's too warm by the way he delicately pants between thoughts and keeps flicking his ears to try and cool himself. "You're not getting scared are you? See a big robotic lion and all the sudden you're not so cool anymore?" 

Shiro smiles, not so much at his joke than the fact that he can feel Keith's growing irritation at the heat and the anxiety of not knowing if the next couple of hours will go smoothly or straight to hell. He can't say that he doesn't feel exactly the same. The novelty of the outdoors has faded under the weight of his own nerves. 

"I would hope not, considering they've apparently been grooming me to pilot this thing for who knows how long," Shiro says. Could he? Really? It had been mentioned that no one had seen any of these lions in thousands of years. How did the druids experimenting on him know he was attuned to the thing? What even was the quintessence he had heard mentioned, and if he'd had it before, how had it been changed to suit this lion he'd never seen before? Sure, he  _ might _ be able to get into it, but he had no idea what connecting with the thing would actually entail. It was just as likely that he'd walk up to the lion and it would just… ignore him. And at that point he would be pointless and nothing better than the slave of a spy. "I have a feeling they'll find a reason to make me disappear if I don't get along with it." 

"It probably does you better to trust that the druids know what they're doing." Keith and Shiro look behind them. Sendak stands in front of his own tent not twenty feet away from them, standing tall and stern under the strong sunlight. Shiro stands, but Keith stays where he is, elbows on his knees. 

"That's all they ever do, is experiment. They've covered more things than you can probably think of," Sendak says as he closes the gap between them. Like Keith, he's flicking his ears against the heat. He grumbles, then points at the bag Keith has. "What's the bag for? Sentries are taking water with us." 

"You know, sunscreen and snacks for the kid," Keith responds so easily it catches Shiro off guard. "No fur, no protection." Sendak makes a sound somewhere between a rough growl and a tired sigh. 

"I almost envy you," Sendak says to Shiro. Then he points out towards the South. "Let's go. I don't want to be here longer than I have to and for all I know that damn thing could decide to take off on a whim." 

The thought of a gigantic robot lion just getting up and leaving on its own sticks with Shiro long after their little group of Sendak, Keith, himself and a handful of sentries set off through the jungle. It was a  _ robot  _ right? But no one quite spoke of it like he would expect them to speak of a machine. They talked about it almost like… he wasn't sure. Like an object, but they gave it these human attributes. Like how he would with some of his toys as a kid. But they were completely serious. 

They fully believe this super weapon has a mind of it's own. 

If it's true, Shiro wonders about the wisdom of making something like that. 

The trek through the jungle probably lasts nearly two hours. Shiro's quietly thankful that the sentries and Sendak go ahead of them to part the thickest brush ahead of them, but by the time the foliage clears and they step onto the beginnings of a beach of deep, black sand, he's panting raggedly, and his suit feels less than great from how much he's been sweating. 

But the end is in sight, and Keith seems to think the same. They head out into the beach, waves rolling up onto the sand at their left. 

They hardly get fifty feet out on the beach before Keith suddenly comes up short. Sendak doesn't notice them at first, trudging on and leaving deep footprints in the sand. 

"It's not there," Keith says softly. He says it casually, like he's making a comment about the weather. But he's hiding it. Shiro feels the spike of fear and confusion rushing in through their binding. 

"How do you-" 

"Fuck, I don't know Shiro. I just…   _ know _ ," Keith hisses. He touches his chest, over his heart. "It's just, a feeling. But I'm sure of it. It's not here." They share a glance and it's obvious to Shiro that Keith is just as confused as he is. 

They had planned for Shiro getting into the lion. They had planned for Keith joining him. Planned for Keith left behind. 

But what should they do if the lion wasn't even there? And what did it mean that Keith somehow knew it before they even reached it's lair?


	13. Plan B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay y'all sorry for the wait (and the chapter not really being that much longer to make up for it). You know, the typical excuses of life getting in my way.

He felt like he could drink a lake’s worth of water. He’s probably sweated out as much by now, but as uncomfortable as he is, he feels doubly sorry for Keith, who’s hair is mussed and his fur marred with sand and dust. Keith’s panting harder than ever against the heat, but Sendak very nearly has Shiro’s pity. He’s got to be just as miserable in the humidity as he is frustrated over how poorly this search is going. 

The red lion’s lair was a cramped, narrow, but high ceilinged maze of caves. If his sense of direction hasn’t failed him they should have gone down and around from the beach, and from how far they had gone down into these caves, they should be somewhere further back into the forest the cave butted up against. 

Sendak passes through a shaft of sunlight ahead of them, and the light pales his fur. Keith passes through next and he nearly glows. Shiro steps into the light and squints up. They’re probably twenty feet down and the green mass of plants at the top of the hole confirms his suspicions. Keith doesn’t slow for him and his binding pulls him along, unhappy at being more than even a couple steps from him in such close quarters.  

How long were they going to look here? They’ve had to have been nearing their third hour in these caves and Shiro, at least, was more than inclined to believe Keith when he said that there was no lion here. Once, maybe, because the walls are still dotted with carved, faded images of a massive lion. But his hopes are fading that they’re actually going to find anything in here today. 

At least, he hopes the lion truly isn’t here. If it is and it’s just not reacting to his tailored quin...stuff, he probably has some kind of hell coming for him. 

Shiro didn’t want to know what would happen to him if the druid’s experimenting didn’t work and he proved to be more useless than they’d planned. 

Sendak’s cursing echoes just around a corner ahead of them. Keith’s ears turn back for a beat, but he trots ahead without looking back, trusting Shiro to follow him closely. 

“What happened?” Keith asks as they slow to a stop. Sendak growls where he’s crowded in against a sentry. He looks over their heads and barks at the sentries coming up behind them to bring some rope. The rocky corridor is cramped between Sendak and the sentry with him, both of them towering both Keith and himself. 

“Another drop,” Sendak growls. The sentry next to him hits a button on the side of its blaster and a bright light points down into the hole. Sendak looks down it and, as another sentry reaches over with a coil of rope, Shiro tugs Keith into the scant space between himself and the wall. His binding bristles at being stuck here with their enemy and he can’t resist using the lulls in their search to shelter Keith best he can. 

Keith usually indulges him. This time, however, Keith struggles until Shiro lets him go and allows Keith to take a couple steps forward towards the hole. The sentry sets its blaster-turned-flashlight down and kneels to jab the hook attached to one end of the rope into the lip of the hole before it feeds the rope down slowly. Measuring how deep the drop is. 

Keith stops several steps from edge, tips his head forward and tries to look in. “Should we even keep going, Sendak?” Keith asks. Sendak’s ear flicks a little more violently than normal. “We’ve been in here for vargas and we haven’t seen anything.” Sendak growls, points at the walls covered in images of the lion. 

“It’s here. We keep going,” Sendak presses. Keith, half the size of Sendak, bristles and doesn’t back down at all. Sendak has no idea that Keith has been able to sense the absence of the lion this entire time and although that thought rushes to the forefront of Shiro’s mind, he keeps it to himself. 

“It  _ was  _ here. It’s not anymore. We’ve gone far enough. If it were here, Shiro would have connected to it by now, and it would have shown itself. The druids tuned his quintessence specifically for  _ this  _ lion. It shouldn’t be able to resist him,” Keith presses. The sentry’s rope finally goes slack with only a few feet left to feed down. It’s found the bottom of the hole. It tosses the rest down, stands, and waits patiently on the sidelines of the argument. Shiro is less calm, and slowly pushes his way close to Keith’s side, fighting back the urge to put himself between Keith and Sendak. 

“Do you know how these lions work? Have you seen one? Flown one? What the hell do you know, Keith?” Sendak spits. “If we find it and they can  _ see  _ each other, it’ll work. For all we know the lion could still be miles off.” 

“For all we know it could be on another planet by now. Just because the images are here, doesn’t mean the red lion’s stayed put. It’s supposed to be tempermental, are you really expecting it to be patient enough to wait here for ten thousand years?” Keith presses. 

“It’s a machine, Keith,” Sendak says. He straightens up, motions for the sentry waiting on him to go ahead down the hole. 

“It’s sentient,  _ Sendak _ . That’s the point. Of Voltron. That’s why it’s so quiznaking powerful,” Keith growls. “Even if it is here, it obviously doesn’t want to show itself. We should go back and regroup.” 

“We’re going, and if it’s really got a connection with your pet,” Sendak says. He glances Shiro’s way and goosebumps rise on Shiro’s skin at the calculated aggression in his stance. “Maybe it’ll come running for him if I toss him down this godforsaken hole instead of letting him use the rope.” 

The wave of Keith’s alarm washes through Shiro’s binding like the tide. Keith doesn’t trust Sendak. Keith is thinking along the same lines he is. They’re in cramped spaces with the enemy and Shiro realizes, very quickly, that Keith doesn’t know how serious Sendak is about the threat he just made. Keith backs up a step, his ears pulling back, and even though Shiro can feel the anxiety rioting inside the Galra, Keith shows submissiveness. He doesn’t like it, and Shiro bristles at the urge to step in and take over for him, but he knows what Keith’s thinking. They can’t easily slip away, so for now, it’s wiser to give in and go along peacefully. 

Sendak single yellow eye narrows when Keith doesn’t speak up, but apparently he decides he doesn’t need to press his thoughts further. He turns to the hole and peers down, then glances to Shiro. 

“Him first-” Sendak says, jabbing his finger at Shiro. Keith shares a slightly worried look with Shiro, opens his mouth to say something.

“Sir!” One of the sentries behind them barks. The two behind him, further down the corridor start in on a volley of beeps and chirps, the sounds echoing off the walls until Shiro’s ears ring. The third, already at the bottom of the drop in front of them, echoes with the same. “Commander Sendak, the camp is under rebel fire. Request backup?” it asks. Sendak growls viciously, glances down the hole. He wants to keep going, but Keith sees the opportunity and latches on tight. 

“We need to go back,” Keith says. This time, he doesn’t wait for Sendak to push his case. He grabs Shiro’s arm pushes him in front of him and leads him down the corridor. Shiro wants to resist Keith putting himself between Shiro and Sendak and turning their back on the other Galra, but he moves on. Getting out of here is more important than the specifics of who’s standing next to who. 

“It’s going to take vargas to get back, Keith,” Sendak rumbles. Keith pushes past the sentries and Shiro relaxes a little knowing there’s  _ some  _ buffer behind them. Shiro starts to lead the way now, sticking to the right because he knows they followed the left on the way in. He can hear Sendak’s heavy footsteps behind them. 

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll probably miss the actual fighting but we still need to be there to sort things out afterwards, asap,” Keith says. 

“You,” Sendak tells one of the sentries. “Contact Haxus and tell him to provide what backup he can from orbit.” Then to Keith: “You’re absolutely useless.” Shiro bites the inside of his cheek to quiet his thoughts, but through his binding, he feels that Keith is nonplussed by the comment. 

“By your line of thinking, the red lion will still be right here, so I’m not too worried about leaving it for now,” Keith says. Now that Sendak’s following them, they slow a little, but still keep pace to get out of the caves. “I’m not in any particular rush to give up my bonded slave, so as far as I’m concerned he can have a few more days before I go shoving him into the lion’s mouth.”

* * *

 

The dense forest hides the damage done to the camp right up until they break into the clearing and see, well, a mess. Crates and supplies broken and thrown around in black, sandy soil kicked up and scattered between rough chunks of glass made by the heat of blasters. There’s not a tent that hasn’t been pushed, bent, or torn down completely. Sentries mill around, pulling their own irreparably damaged brethren off to a corner of the clearing to be taken up later. 

A private, some scrawny, stressed looking kid without his helmet on, perks up when they come into sight. He rushes over, panting raggedly in his scorched armor. Sendak grumbles and the private struggles into a salute. “Commander Sendak, the rebels have attacked camp.” 

“I think I can see that much,” Sendak says. The private swallows. “Casualties? What were they after?” Then, before the private can even answer: “Details, man!” 

“No living casualties, but we lost almost a dozen sentries. They were the same as always. Three ships, all of different makes and colors. We still need to look through the sentries and see what data they recorded. They…” The private hesitates. “They took off with some of our supplies.” 

“Like what,” Sendak presses sharply. 

“Most of our weapons. Maps,” the private looks almost painfully nervous telling Sendak the news, and he hesitates for a long second. “Basically all of our drinking water.” Shiro watches the private closely. The water thing might be true, but he doesn’t see why there needs to be so much of a pause. He’s not telling the entire truth. Sendak rolls his eye, but Shiro feels the pointed look that Keith gives him. He can nearly feel the sensation of the wheels turning in Keith’s head and he knows instinctively that Keith has picked up on the private’s hesitation as well. 

“Take me through and show me,” Sendak says, he sets his normal hand on the private’s shoulder and turns him, pushing him deeper into camp. As he walks away, Shiro can hear Sendak ordering one of the sentries to contact Haxus and tell him to make a report on supplies still in orbit. The second he’s out of earshot, Keith turns and heads towards their tent. 

Their tent is ruffled, but still standing, and between the two of them they’re able to readjust the poles on their own without help from any of the sentries. Rebels clearly made their way into the tent itself. What few belongings they left behind have been pulled out and looked through, but everything worth anything to them is already in the bag on Shiro’s back so it’s more a job of tidying up and pushing the mattress back onto the bed than fretting over anything that might have been found out about them. 

“The rebels took something really important,” Keith says, quietly, just in case someone is hanging around the tent within ear shot while the camp is putting itself back together. “Did you see that private? He was about to piss himself thinking of telling Sendak and me about it.” 

“I did. Do you think Sendak picked up on it?” Shiro asks, equally quiet. Keith gives him a sharp look. 

“Of course he did, that private’s going to regret not telling him outright,” Keith says. “What do you think it is?” 

“Something about the lion,” Shiro says easily. Besides their own association with the Blade of Marmora, the only other thing that could possibly be such sensitive information that it instills so much fear in it being compromised, is the red lion’s whereabouts. “But if we’re the only two that know that the lion isn’t where Sendak thinks it is, then they’re all just going on a wild goose chase around each other over something that’s not even where it’s supposed to be.” 

Keith sits down on the edge of the bed, pushing his fingers through his hair with a tired sigh. Shiro bites the inside of his cheek, shrugs off his bag and takes a seat next to Keith. It’s still too hot, and they both smell overheated. Shiro of fresh sweat, Keith of sun warmed fur and soil over something sharper that Shiro can’t quite pin down. 

“He’ll make us go back and look again,” Shiro muses softly. His mind turns each piece of this situation over, searching for the ways they could fit together. Everyone thinks the red lion is somewhere it’s not. Keith had sensed it and Shiro, who had somehow been tuned to lure the weapon, had yet to feel anything at all. The rebels had not only found out the location of their camp, but had gathered together at least enough organized strength to hit their camp and make off with supplies in a matter of hours. Shiro looks around their tent, where they had taken care to straighten up their things. 

“They knew to look for something here,” Keith says. “Somehow, they’ve found out about the lion too. Before just now. This hit on the camp is just to get the coordinates.” 

“Why couldn’t they just follow us out?” Shiro asks. “Write down the coordinates themselves?” Keith sets his elbows on his knees, his ears pulling back halfway as he thinks. 

“Either their leader wants hard proof from Galra sources or…” Shiro watches Keith suck in his bottom lip, sees a slip of one of his sharp canines. Slowly, a sense of paranoia rises in Shiro through his bond with Keith while the Galra’s thoughts reach their conclusion. “Or the lion is only part of it. And we don’t know everything going on here.” 

“Uh,” Shiro starts. Keith’s paranoia quickly becomes his own. Keith stands, sweeps his fingers up the back of his left ear, his thumb rubbing firmly over a spot along the seam of color. 

“Weblum. Be ready for a briefing at 20:00. Something happened and I need second opinions,” Keith says quietly. It’s distant in the way that Shiro knows he isn’t talking to him. Probably to Thace, or Ulaz. Keith rubs again and turns on Shiro. “We didn’t know  _ anything  _ about the red lion until Zarkon himself was telling him about it. I’m not letting myself be taken by surprise like that again. For now, let’s help clean up camp and make sure people are seeing us. Twenty doboshes before the meeting, we’re going back out out of camp for a bath.”

* * *

 

By the time the sun is easing into the treeline, Shiro isn’t so sure of how he feels anymore. He’s helping clean up the last of camp, which means sticking closely to Keith’s side while he picks his way around camp and helps with whatever he can, taking care that everyone can see him being mundane. On one hand he’s never been so happy to finally have a little bit of sunburn on the back of his neck. On the other, he was pretty sure he hadn’t done so much physical labor for so long even as a prisoner. Fighting in the arena tended to be quick bursts of desperate fighting. He’d been hiking through sand and rainforest, hauling weights in the heat and humidity for  _ hours  _ and his head was pounding from dehydration. 

“You look like you’re about to drop,” Keith muses as he leads the way towards Sendak, who’s still barking orders as a supply ship lurches to a stop and sentries start rolling out replacements for what was lost. 

“I might,” Shiro pants. “The humidity is killing me.” He watches enviously as two sentries set a pallet of water jugs into the sand. Without a word, Keith approaches it, snaps open one of the straps that hold the water secure and pulls one off the top corner. He sets it into Shiro’s arms and it all Shiro can do not to rip the cap off and help himself. 

“Sendak, I’m off. I’ll be back in an hour,” Keith says. Sendak flicks his ear, looks at him questioningly. Keith merely points to the water in Shiro’s arms. “A bath, and I’m about to lose this guy.” Sendak just nods, points to a place next to the first pallet while sentries unload the next.

“There’s a pool not that far out from camp,” Keith says as they step into the forest behind their own tent. Shiro had nearly made himself sick on water, but regrettably, he’s had to leave the rest in their tent, picking up a change of clothes and their pack with everything important in it instead. Even for something mundane as a bath, they can’t afford to leave it behind and risk someone nosing through it. “Scouts had found it before we made camp here, but they’ve decided to use a bigger one in the opposite direction. We should be alone out here,” Keith says. 

They’re a good ten minute walk into the forest when the foliage thins out and the ground becomes less sandy and shifts into flat rockiness. The pool is small, as Keith said, little more than a waist deep puddle of water collected in a stone basin. The harder rock keeps the bigger plants at bay and from drinking up the water, but thin patches of bright moss cling stubbornly around the cracks, happy to have the clearing for themselves. 

Their footsteps seem to thud loudly as they push into the clearing. Shiro shrugs off the bag when Keith comes up short, reaching under his arms to work at the clasps of his chestpiece. “I’ll never get used to this heavy armor,” Keith growls, he pries the chestpiece apart, pushes it up and over his head, then sets it down on the rocks carefully. Underneath, his flight suit clings tightly to his skin, making even his short fur puff up a little around his neck. “You first, Shiro. You really do look tired,” Keith says. “I haven’t been sweating all day either. I’m gonna make a call.” 

Keith doesn’t turn away when Shiro unzips his suit and peels it off himself. He knows that because even though he has his back turned to him, he feels the the tingle of Keith’s curiosity through his binding. It’s like a cold poke in the back. He  _ knows  _ that Keith’s looking and he knows exactly  _ what  _ Keith’s glanced at because what else would give him that deliberate sense of Keith pulling himself up short, a sudden dulling of Keith’s emotions as he shoves them back. 

Shiro slips quickly into the water, grateful that the deepest parts of the pool come up past his hips. The water is deliciously cool and clear, fresh smelling and clean as he cups it in his hands and scrubs it over his face and hair, letting it run down his back in thin trails. When he’s scrubbed the worst of his grime off, he goes back for the soap he’s set on the edge of the pool. 

Keith has stripped off the rest of his armor, even his boots, and he stands a few feet away from the edge of the pool in only his tight fitting undersuit. Shiro lathers the soap between his hands and watches as Keith once again feels around the back of his ear, right along the reddish edge until he seems to find something and rubs his thumb firmly over it.

“Weblum.” A pause, and Shiro wonders what the word ‘weblum’ means. Then: “Hey, I need advice,” Keith says, he’s firm, but casual in such a way that Shiro figures he must be talking to either Thace or Ulaz even though Keith is being purposely vague. A communicator embedded in his ear?

Keith continues on recounting the day’s events. The red lion missing. The rebels attacking camp. His suspicions that the rebels now have the coordinates to where Sendak thinks the red lion is, but admitting he doesn’t have any solid proof to go off of. Shiro wipes suds away from his eyes and dunks his head around the time Keith is asking if they’ve gathered anything useful ‘up top’, but Shiro hears the zipper of Keith’s suit over everything else when he comes up again and shakes the water from his ears. 

Keith glances at him with half interest, his left ear twitched back a little as he listens to the tinny murmur of his communicator. Shiro watches as Keith tucks his fingers under his suit at his chest and pushes it off his shoulders. Keith is lithe, but still muscled, though it loses some of its definition under his fur. Keith pulls the suit off his arms and Shiro takes in how the cream color at his throat extends across his chest down past his navel. Keith pushes his thumbs into the suit again where it hangs around the curve of his hips and- 

He changes his mind, crossing them over his stomach. Irritation filters through the binding and Shiro drags his eyes away. He snatches up a towel and uses it to cover himself as he climbs out of the pool. Shiro scrubs his face harshly as he hears Keith toss his suit to the side and step into the water, as if he could physically push his shame back off his cheeks. 

“Okay, I’ll figure it out from here then,” Keith says. “Contact me even if it seems small. And keep an eye on Haxus.” Shiro watches him rub the spot on his ear and turn the communicator off as he pulls on a pair of clean pants. 

“Sorry,” Shiro speaks up, when Keith keeps his back turned to him and quietly goes about rubbing soap over his shoulders. “I wasn’t even paying attention and I caught you when you couldn’t say anything.” Keith glances at him over his shoulder. 

“It’s fine, Shiro, really,” Keith says. He scrubs at his face. “I’m probably too used to being looked at anyways.” A pause, and Keith glances at him again, but this time a small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Between the two of us, I’m pretty sure you’re the one more worth staring at.” 

Shiro watches for several seconds as Keith goes back to his bath, washing his hair with his ears pulled back tight to keep water out of them. His mind works hard over what Keith means by that. He examines what little he’s getting through their binding right now and feels nothing but a small pinpoint of mirth. Keith thinks he’s being funny, but Shiro finds himself oddly self conscious. What did Keith mean by him being worth staring at? His paleness? His lack of fur or claws or sharp teeth? His scars? His… (and Shiro’s mind hardly wants to finish the thought), anatomy?

“Damn you,” Shiro growls under his breath. A beat of silence, then to his surprise Keith laughs. Not loud, and not particularly hard, but it’s a bright, sharp sound and so humanly familiar it catches Shiro off guard by how much it aches him in his chest to hear it.

“I promise, I mean it in a good-” Keith cuts himself off and a wave of fear rushes through Shiro’s binding so fast and heavy it feels like he’s been punched in the stomach. Keith stares hard into into the treeline, eyes wide and ears straining forward like a frightened deer. Shiro, suddenly, realizes just how dull his senses are compared to Keith’s. He looks in the same direction Keith is staring, straining so hard to see into the darkness of the foliage that his eyes ache. 

Deep in the shadows of the trees he sees it.

A faint, boxy shape. 

The snap of a camera’s shutter. 


	14. A Change of Scenery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, I'm finally back with this. I am sorry for the long wait, and I hope that it's not too much trouble trying to pick this up again. I know I had to reread parts of this and I wrote the dang thing! Thank you all for being so patient and I hope I can keep this on a somewhat regular schedule again. (We'll see. I always say that and I'm bad about just posting whenever).

“Shiro!” Keith calls. Shiro’s mind works overtime. He hears the splash of water as Keith climbs out the pool after him. The sharp scuff of dried foliage under his feet as he pushes through the trees. The sharp sting in his calf as a twig cuts into his skin in his rush to close in on the camera. He can stop it. Whatever it’s seen, what it’s heard, he can stop it from saving that or worse, sending it off to whoever had set it up. He just has to destroy it. 

A metallic whirr and Shiro comes up short when a flash of silver catches his eye. The camera- or robot, it seems, flinches away from Shiro with a jerk of its treads so sharp it kicks up a puff of leaves and dirt. The entire hip-high, boxy machine teeters back with a high, panicked buzz, its kitten ears waving. A long, flexible arm telescopes out of the side. 

Shiro’s Galra arm itches, feels like it’s buzzing deep down into the bone up his shoulder. It makes his skin crawl, grips something in the back of his mind  _ Move, fight,  _ **_kill it_ ** **.**

He grabs the robot’s arm just as it touches the ground. He growls, rips it towards itself. The robot jerks back, but the port where the arm appeared catches and sparks against the strength in Shiro’s arm. It squeals and crashes on it’s back with a hollow, heavy thud. 

“Shiro-  _ no _ !” Keith’s voice is much closer now, just a few steps behind him. “Leave it alone! Don’t hurt it anymore.” Keith grabs him at his forearm and a pain washes over Shiro’s palms like he’s stuck his hand in scalding water. Keith tugs him back until Shiro lets to robot go and it pulls its arm back into itself. 

“It took pictures of us,” Shiro growls. He glances to Keith, double takes when he realizes he’s wearing nothing but a towel and looking no less fierce for it. Keith shakes his head, clenching his hands, Shiro’s own throbs with residual heat. He adds; “Are you okay?” 

“It’s too late to do anything about that,” Keith says, but doesn’t clarify if it’s about the pictures or the fact that his hands feel like they’ve been lightly burned. The robot, still trapped on its back at their feet, chitters softly. A slot opens under its single eye and a short piece of paper slips out. Keith bends, but Shiro beats him too it, ripping the paper off the machine and looking it over first. It’s a neat series of printed Galra numbers. Coordinates, coordinates and… a time? He knows enough to recognize what it is, but not enough to place the specifics. Keith takes it from him with a sharp tug. 

It feels like he looks at it for a long time. Shiro watches his soft, golden eyes shifting back and forth over the numbers probably a dozen times before he sighs thickly and turns back towards the pool. “Leave it. We’ll be dealing with this tomorrow, and leaving that where it is will make this a lot less of a headache,” he says. Shiro hesitates as Keith disappears through the trees, the scrap of paper wrinkled tightly in his hand. The robot chirrs, and when Shiro glances down at it it twitches its ears almost hopefully. He decides to leave it where it is and follows Keith back to the pool. 

“What is it?” Shiro asks, looking down at the dark rock when Keith tugs off his towel and steps back into the pool. He risks a glance up and watches Keith stand belly deep in the water, holding the note beneath the surface and scrubbing it to soggy indecipherable bits. 

Keith tugs his ears back stiff as he shakes the last shreds of paper from his hands and starts slaking water through his hair again. The palms of Shiro’s hands throb dully, aching a little more every time Keith runs his fingers through his hair. “We have a meeting on the other planet in this system,” he says. Shiro pauses, watching Keith lather soap through his hair, suds sliding through his fur down the back of his neck. Shiro turns away and looks out to the forest, peering into the darkness towards camp and where the robot was in turns. 

Keith doesn’t elaborate on this meeting anymore, but Shiro doesn’t feel like he really needs to. The robot belongs to the rebels who had attacked their camp earlier. The ones who now had the coordinates for the red lion as well. But why Keith, and what did they want? Their role as spies was now compromised, so they needed the blackmail for something to ensure that Keith followed through on their whims. 

And Keith… he’s not acting like the Galra commander he’s playing, that he  _ is.  _ Shiro imagines that if someone tried to blackmail Sendak, he would have seen a hundred sentries armed to the teeth. Keith plans to meet them alone. The thought makes Shiro’s spine tingle unpleasantly.

Whatever they want, Shiro wonders if Keith already knows it, or thinks they’re going to offer him a deal they can’t afford to pass up. 

“We’re still supposed to be looking for the red lion, aren’t we? Is Sendak going to let us go?” Shiro asks. Keith hums and doesn’t answer for a long while. Shiro listens to him bathe. 

“As much as Sendak wants to think otherwise,” Keith starts. Deeper splashing as Keith wades to the edge of the pool and climbs out. “He’s not my better. He’s my equal. If I tell him I have a hunch about the lion I want to follow, he has no choice but to let me do my job. If I want to go on my own, I’m going to go on my own and he’ll have to get over it.” 

“He’s not going to do that so easily,” Shiro says, turning to Keith after he’s pulled on some pants and watching him tug on a loose shirt. “He’ll send someone to track us, or try to get in the way of whatever we’re doing.” Shiro comes near, helps him pack up their few things before they head back to camp. Keith only shrugs as if it’s a small, unavoidable detail.

“That’s exactly what you’re here for, isn’t it?” he asks. Shiro frowns deeply and follows close at Keith’s back as they make the short walk to their tent. The comment almost feels like a slap to the face. He couldn’t pick out a bulky robot taking pictures of them in a dark, quiet forest while they bathed and talked of confidential business. How is he supposed to pick out another spy, or realize when someone is following them, or listening in or taking more pictures? 

The possibilities make Shiro’s skin crawl, his mind whirling with a hundred different scenarios. In camp, he makes Keith stand outside the tent with their things while he pokes around and makes sure everything is still safe and secure. Sendak could find out about them being spies, their plans for the red lion. They could imprison Keith, torture him, kill him. The rebels are no better. Shiro’s sure they’re just as likely to offer a helping hand as they are to stab them both in the back to get ahead. Maybe kidnap Keith and hold him for ransom. Sell him back to Sendak. He could all too easily see the alpha gloating over saving Keith, of having him in chains and at his mercy. 

“Shiro, it’s fine,” Keith says. He pushes into the tent after him, ignoring how Shiro bristles slightly and keeps looking through the tent until after Keith has locked their things safely away in their chest and settled himself into bed. The robot nags at him. How did they know they would be bathing there? Where to set up and collect blackmail? Was it bait? The robot hadn’t left them coordinates until after they had caught it spying. Maybe they caught it by surprise, the thing spitting out the demand for a meeting on the fly to keep them from destroying it. What if they hadn’t seen it? Were there others? They’re going tomorrow, would someone have come into their tent and hurt-

“Bed,” Keith’s voice, soft but firmly demanding. He’s curled up on his side in bed, drying hair spread in a dark halo around his face and a thick blanket bunched up around him despite the heat. Beside him, Shiro’s own black fluffy blanket is tangled up on a thin bit of mattress. He wants Shiro to take it and find a place for himself. Shiro takes it up, looks around for a suitable place on the tent floor to make his bed. Keith wrinkles his nose at him. 

“What are you doing?” he asks. Shiro sighs, draping the blanket over his arm. 

“There’s not much space in here…,” he says, but he’s definitely had much worse. He toes at a corner of the tent floor, tight plastic tarp over soft sand. It’s not a cold cell floor, but his nerves would likely keep him awake just as much. Keith scoffs, untucking his blanket from around himself and patting the bed. 

“Here,” he sighs. “I didn’t plan on staying here today, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you sleep in the floor. Come here in the bed and sleep. I need you well rested tomorrow.” Shiro frowns, looks around the tent one last time, listening to the quiet sounds of the rest of the camp settling down for the night just outside, then joins Keith in the bed. 

He doesn’t fit. He’s not surprised, because it’s a bed made for a single galra. If Keith hadn’t been such a small omega, there would have been no hope of sharing. But as it is, Shiro feels like he’s on the cusp of falling off the bed even when he rests on his side, his chest pressed against Keith’s shoulder. He shifts, feels like his hips will cramp with how tense he is trying to keep himself on the bed, shifts again to get his blanket over himself… once more to put some of his blanket over Keith as well. 

Keith heaves a tired sigh and turns. He pushes up on one arm, tugs one of Shiro’s under himself and flops on top of it. His head winds up pillowed on Shiro’s upper arm. One of his ears flick, tickling Shiro’s arm and sending up a soft, slightly musky scent Shiro faintly recognizes as Keith. Shiro hovers his other arm over him, unsure if he should tuck it between them or… he gently settles it over Keith’s waist, just above the swell of his hips. 

Keith doesn’t push him off, but he doesn’t press in any closer either. He merely settles in, resting his arm between them, his claws pressing gently in at Shiro’s collar. Shiro lays there for a couple minutes, his mind still picking apart every what if it can come up with, turning them each over and over and trailing down a hundred awful scenarios for how poorly tomorrow’s meeting could go. Keith’s claws prick his skin gently and relax in turns, a steady beat that pulls him away from his thoughts. Shiro sighs and pushes a bit closer, resting his chin in Keith’s hair. His ear flicks, tickles his jaw.

“As long as you sleep then,” Keith murmurs.

* * *

 

The next morning the two of them take a small personal craft to a planet Keith refers to as Q7V-3. It’s larger than the planet they had spent the past couple of days on, green replaced with vast expanses of sandy brown, broken up by the occasional small body of deep blue water. It’s also, when Keith leads them through the atmosphere and Shiro sees the dark sprawl of cities, infinitely more crowded. 

His stomach does a nervous turn when Keith flies into a hangar more massive than Shiro has ever seen and lands in the shadow of a larger crafts wing. He leans back in his seat, looking out through the windshield at the chaos of business going on outside. Galra sentries and officers march back and forth in neat lines but it seems like every square inch of space between them is taken up by moving crates, shipping containers, aliens of all different shapes and sizes running pell mell through the swarming motion of a busy crowd, clutching papers, shouting orders, all of it lost to Shiro’s ears. 

Keith unclips himself out of his safety harness. Shiro breaks from trying to make sense of the mess outside and rushes not to follow Keith, but to get out and open the door ahead of him. Keith scoffs as Shiro opens the hatch, coming up behind him instead after making sure their things are locked tightly away. The only item of importance they’re taking with them is Keith’s blade, still strapped to Shiro’s belt. Shiro pokes his head out the door, wary of people lingering close and trying to find a path through the crowd and outside. 

“Come on,” Keith says. He prods him by patting Shiro’s side, gently digging his claws in through his shirt. “Sendak held us up enough that we only have about an hour before we have to meet up.” He points over Shiro’s shoulder as they head down the steps. “Get out the hangar and go right.” 

Shiro decides that the best path out is right against the wall, beyond where ships are coming in and out, away from the bulk of the crowd. Keith doesn’t mention how Shiro keeps to his side and prevents him from walking anywhere but directly along the wall. He just sets a good pace and makes Shiro keep up with him. Coming out of the hangar, to their left is a pier of dark wood and large, sand colored blocks that stretches out deep into the lake the city butts up against. Dark blue water reaches out nearly to the horizon, where the small, blocky shapes of another city’s skyline breaks up the rocky expanse of scrubland on the opposite shore. 

Keith turns right, towards the gate that separates the pier and hangar from the city proper. Shiro follows him closely. It’s not nearly as crowded with people outside the hangar, but Shiro watches all the carts and moving goods, half worried one of them will be in the way and harmed on accident. 

Instead of any of the locals guarding the gates, it’s only Galra standing guard. Keith hardly slows passing through the gate. They see the commander’s symbol on his jacket and wave him through with a little salute. The gate leads out on a wide street and with the traffic held up with last minute inspections and chatter, the effect is almost instantly calming. Many people still mill around, but these aren’t people doing business for the empire, these are people out doing their morning shopping. 

Still, it’s abundantly clear that this is Galra controlled territory. Sentries are posted on every block, off duty Galra occasionally mixed with the locals. But as Shiro follows Keith down the long street deeper into the city, he notices that neither seem to want to interact with the other. Only when there’s business to be done. Otherwise the Galra seem content to move as they like, and the rest leave them well enough alone. 

They’re avoiding Keith as well. It’s not so much that the street isn’t busy, but that everyone is giving Keith a wide berth. Shiro doesn’t have to worry about someone sneaking up on them and picking pockets or hurting Keith because no one comes closer than four of five feet to either of them. They have nothing to do with the Galra. 

Good then, he’ll be able to pick out whoever wants to meet with them much easier this way. 

The wide road they’re on opens up into a large, circular plaza. Squat, two and three story buildings surround the space, all of them made of the same light colored bricks. Brightly dyed banners hang from many of the buildings, Galra purples, reds, and blacks. Around the edge and in little bunches around the center there are merchant’s stands, a myriad of goods on display. Keith heads to the left, keeping close to the perimeter. Shiro keeps close behind him, watching the crowd for any sign of being watched. 

He’s so intent on his watching that he nearly runs into Keith’s back when he comes to a stop in front of a stand. Shiro huffs, but his irritation is quickly cut short when he sees what Keith has stopped for. A small, canid looking woman rest on a short stool, her hands working deftly stoking a fire under a small, slatted grill, turning sticks of rich smelling meat and colorful vegetables over top. Shiro’s mouth waters, though he tries to ignore it when he feels the knowing look Keith gives him. 

“You hungry? I kind of developed a taste for the food when I was stationed here before you came around,” Keith asks quietly. Shiro hums, noncommittal. His stomach growls and, through his binding, he feels the faint cramp of Keith’s own hunger. The woman doesn’t look at either of them, but Shiro can tell how she starts to work quicker, her fingers shaking lightly. Is she scared?

Keith reaches into his pack for his wallet and the woman shivers. She asks something in stuttering, thickly accented Galran, to quick for Shiro to understand. Keith nods, responds quietly with a standard greeting. He pulls some coins from his wallet and presses them into Shiro’s hand. “Three,” Keith says. 

Shiro shows the woman his money and, knowing little Galra, points to two of meat and one of vegetables and simply asks, “Please?” Nodding, the woman wraps each in thick paper and both food and money change hands. Her triangular ears perk up seeing what he’s given her. She tries to hand a couple coins back, but Keith merely shakes his head and leaves her with a polite nod. 

“She seemed scared of you,” Shiro says quietly. Keith takes some of the meat and nibbles delicately at it as they make their way closer to the fountain. Keith merely hums, pensive, but not seeming much surprised by the fear he apparently instills in much of the local population. It’s nothing new to him. Shiro takes a bite of the meat and nearly purrs at the savory, but slightly sweet taste, a bit like honey and something deeper, a little spicy. “What happened?” he asks after he’s swallowed. 

“What hasn’t happened? This place used to be a stronghold for a rebel alliance. The Galra came in, dismantled the bulk of it. In the end it…” Keith pauses, pulling his ears back. He glances to Shiro and for a beat Shiro feels something a little like fear, but mostly a deep, deep hurt aching in his chest. Shiro nudges closer, starting Keith towards a more secluded edge, where a set of dark, worn benches sit against a building. 

“Are you okay?” Shiro asks. Keith sits on the bench further from the alley and Shiro joins him, sitting so close Keith’s shoulder brushes along his arm. Keith ignores him for a good while and Shiro busies himself with his food. He can feel Keith’s emotions seething somewhere deep in his chest. Something he’s upset about, but not the Galra’s treatment here. Perhaps it was something they did then? Keith  _ was  _ commander, so he would have been leading in this whole situation here before he had been sent back to bind Shiro to him. 

“It’s okay, Keith,” he says softly, once he’s finished the last of his food. It was Keith then. Something he had ordered, or something done while he was in command, had led the people to be so scared of him. “We all have to do things that-” Keith pulls his ears back hard and growls softly. 

“Please-” he says. He bites his lip, looks out across the crowd. His dark hair shines in the noon sunlight, his fur pale and soft looking. Shiro pulls his eyes off him and his focus narrows in sharply. Someone coming out of the crowd and heading towards them. A young, scruffy looking man. Not Galra, but with purple skin and walking with a slight limp, an easy grin on his face. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. Forget about it. We have something we need to-” 

Shiro cuts Keith off with a hand on his arm. He pushes down, silently telling Keith remain seated while he stands and faces the man. He doesn’t seem bothered by Shiro’s tense suspicion. He tips his head lightly in greeting, and easy smile on his face. 

“Nice to meet you too,” the stranger says. Shiro stares hard. The man holds out his hand, like he wants to shake. “Rolo. You’ve gotta be new.” Shiro flickers his gaze between Rolo’s eyes and his hand. He seems relaxed, not on edge at all in the same way Shiro is. He’s not worried about anything. Meaning he wants peace, or that he’s sure he has the upper hand?

Shiro glances to Keith. He hardly has time to register the tired resignation in his eyes when Rolo claps him high on the shoulder and something pricks his skin. Shiro jerks. At first he thinks something in Rolo’s worn glove had pinched him. But Rolo grins, and when Shiro brushes a shaking hand over the sore spot he sees a tiny smear of blood. Rolo flashes the palm of his hand and in his fading vision Shiro catches the miniscule gleam of a needle tucked into the fabric of his glove. 

Keith sighs, stands, and he’s suddenly taller than Shiro. His knees hurt, the stone is hot against his cheek and smells of sand. “Sorry,” Rolo says, his voice wavering and distant. “He’s bound and we just can’t trust him not to do something that might hurt both of us before we have a chance to talk all this out nicely.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the break I've learned how to make hyperlinks lol. 
> 
> You can find me [@quiddid](http://quiddid.tumblr.com/) on tumblr. I've made a discord while I was gone as well. If you'd like it, hmu on tumblr and I'll let you know.

**Author's Note:**

> Dave Duncan is my favorite guilty pleasure fantasy.
> 
> I'm quiddid at both tumblr and twitter. Ask me about this au? Maybe I'll tell you what I have planned for this before I get to it in like 6,000 years.


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